


Curiosity Killed the Cat (Satisfaction Brought It Back)

by Sandrene09



Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Animal Transformation, Cat Tony Stark, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-22 18:14:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13172475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrene09/pseuds/Sandrene09
Summary: Written for the 2017 Cap-Ironman Holiday Exchange: Community Prompts: Tony has a major crush on Captain America despite not knowing who he is beneath the mask. He gets turned into a cat and the only way to turn back is for someone he loves to love him as he is. He obviously doesn’t have a chance with Cap. After wandering the streets, he gets taken in by an ordinary guy named Steve, who turns out to be pretty great, maybe even his chance at breaking the curse.





	Curiosity Killed the Cat (Satisfaction Brought It Back)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cap Iron Man Community](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cap+Iron+Man+Community).



> I am bad at filling prompts. I hope you enjoy this fic anyway. Happy holidays! This is set in a world where Tony never revealed he was Iron Man, and the Avengers isn’t a thing (yet). This ended up being a weird sort of mix of 616 and MCU, and I’m sorry for that. Also, I swear I have no idea how it ended up being 20K words long.
> 
> EDIT: Translated into Chinese  _[here](http://yizhiajiu401.lofter.com/post/1f1fe61b_1226d585)_  (the fic is spread out into chapters because of Lofter's word-limit; the link is for the last chapter, where all the previous chapters are also linked).

The day SHIELD decided to make an Instagram account for Captain America is the day that Tony fell in love.

Actually, no. Not really.

It starts like this:

Three years into this superhero gig—three years into mostly successfully getting everyone to believe that Iron Man’s his bodyguard—SHIELD finds Cap frozen under the ice in the Atlantic.

Tony tries to see him. Twice. The key word being  _try_.

At first, Tony goes as Iron Man. It’s not every day you get to meet your favorite superhero since you were a child, so why not go as someone Cap could be proud of meeting? Tony Stark is a womanizing alcoholic with daddy issues and more money than he knows what to do with. Iron Man is not. It’s obvious who Cap would prefer meeting.

Tony heads into SHIELD and acts on his best behavior, trying not to look like he’s impatient. It feels like hours before Fury finally opens the door to his office and raises an eyebrow at Tony, unimpressed.

“Trespassing is a crime,” Fury says calmly as he closes the door behind him.

Tony bites back a retort. Mouthing off would do him no good here. Besides, Iron Man doesn’t purposefully annoy Fury the way Tony does. “I want to see Captain America,” he says instead.

Fury sighs, walking to his chair and sitting down, his eye trained on Tony. It feels like Fury can see right through the faceplate. Tony resists the urge to squirm. “Why?”

It’s probably not appropriate to tell Fury that he’s had a crush on the guy since he was five. “There’s a new superhero around. Why wouldn’t I want to meet him?”

Fury looks at him. “Stark put you up to this,” he finally says, leaning back against the chair.

Tony shakes his head. “No. I won’t even tell him I was here. I just want to meet the guy. I assume he’s going to be around for a while, so why not meet him now instead of later?”

“Even if I trusted you not telling your boss about Cap,” Fury begins, the dry tone of his voice clearly letting Tony know that he doesn’t, “I can’t let you meet him. There are security concerns.”

“Security concerns?”

Fury leans forward. “Yes. Unless, that is, you’ve changed your mind about the Avenger Initiative.” There’s a glint in Fury’s one good eye. Tony hates it. “If you’ve changed your mind, then by all means, we can have you meet Cap. I hear meeting teammates is good for team morale.”

Tony blinks. “Cap agreed?”

“Cap agreed,” Fury says, smiling and leaning back once more.

Damn it. Damn him. Fury is a spy’s spy, and now he knows how much meeting Cap means to Iron Man.

Tony tries to imagine joining the team, but it’s hard. Besides the fact that Tony has never particularly been a good team player, agreeing to the Initiative means having SHIELD know who Iron Man really is, and he can’t have that happen. Even if they were okay with the idea of Tony Stark playing at being a superhero, the rest of the world sure wouldn’t. And even though meeting Cap is a dream come true, being Iron Man is the best thing that’s ever happened to him. He won’t jeopardize that.

“So,” Fury says once more, bringing Tony back to the present, “what do you think?”

“I’ll pass,” Tony says, standing up. “Give Cap my regards.”

Fury watches him with a small smile on his face. “I’ll be sure to do that.”

The next day, Tony comes back, this time dressed in a three-piece suit and a pair of dark aviators. He strolls into Fury’s office, takes his phone out, and waits.

Fury arrives not two minutes later, annoyed. “Iron Man told you,” he says, closing the door behind him and heading to his seat.

“Yep,” Tony says, popping the ‘p’. “I would have found out that you found Cap anyway, considering it’s Howard’s expedition that found him, but yeah, he told me he tried to meet Cap.”

“The answer’s still no,” Fury says, straight to the point. “Security concerns.”

“Come on,” Tony says, leaning forward. “You will never find someone as small of a security concern as me.”

“You have three sex tapes online, Stark,” Fury says dryly. “You’ve been on the front page of every major tabloid newspaper for the past three years. You literally hired a bodyguard and put him in a red and gold suit of armor to protect you. You are the textbook definition of a security concern.”

Tony blinks. “Wow. Tell me how you  _really_  feel, sweetheart.”

Fury glares at him. “Get out.”

“A Stark expedition found him,” Tony says, ignoring Fury. “Shouldn’t I get to meet him?”

“You know as well as I do that Howard arranged for SHIELD to have what remained of Captain America if he were ever found. Any more questions?”

Tony directs a sunny grin at him. “Can I meet Captain America?”

Fury looks at him, unimpressed. “Get out of my office, Stark.”

Really, Tony could have just gotten into the SHIELD system and spied on Cap anyway, but it felt a little too much like cheating, so he hadn’t bothered. He figured, well, Cap was going to be in New York anyway. Tony will meet him.

Tony eventually meets Cap while fighting Doombots in Central Park. He looks up, finds Cap’s wide shoulders pulled back as he throws his shield, and almost loses his footing. Tony then spends the rest of the fight trying not to fixate on Cap’s ass—or his arms, or his legs, or his ridiculous shoulder-to-hip ratio, etc.—by focusing on the Doombots more than necessary.

When the fight’s over, Tony walks over to Cap and offers his hand. “I’m Iron Man,” he says, thankful, not for the first time, that his face is covered by the helmet. It’s embarrassing how excited he is to finally shake Cap’s hand. “It’s great to finally meet you.”

Cap looks at him, blue eyes peering into the faceplate like he could see Tony’s eyes if he squinted hard enough, and smiles, pink lips curling upwards at the edges to reveal straight, white teeth. “Hi,” he says, offering his gloved hand in return. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Tony shakes his hand. He looks at Cap’s smile, visible through the dark blue helmet he’s wearing, looks at his blue eyes, eager and hopeful and so, so genuine, and Tony finds himself done for.

What do you know? It looks like he still has a crush on Captain America after all. Five-year-old him would be proud.

But anyway.

The day SHIELD creates an Instagram account for Cap—and it  _has_  to be SHIELD, because Tony somehow can’t imagine Cap making one himself—Tony immediately stops what he’s doing and orders JARVIS to keep him posted on Cap’s Instagram account.

It’s a PR thing. It has to be, because every time a new photo is posted, it’s always of Cap doing Cap things like helping local firefighters get the animals out from a burning veterinarian clinic, or watering the school garden with third graders, or helping old ladies cross the street. The photos are never too specific—nothing in them even hint at Cap having a life outside being a superhero—and yet Tony looks forward to them anyway.

It’s his smile, Tony thinks. There’s something about it.

The next few months go on in the same vein. Tony goes on engineering binges, bickers with Rhodey, avoids way too many shareholders meetings, and signs documents for Pepper, all while juggling his responsibilities as Iron Man. He spends too much time looking at Cap’s Instagram account and somehow spends even more time hoping that a new villain will come along so he has an excuse to engage Cap in friendly conversation.

For a while, life’s good. Fury even stops bugging him about letting Iron Man agree to the Initiative.

Everything’s great.

 

 

 

Everything’s a mess.

The asphalt beneath Tony is cleanly split down the middle, there are overturned cars all around him, and he can hear sirens in the distance. Between wheezing gasps for breath, Tony wonders where the hell Cap is, because this is the first time Cap hasn’t shown up, and coincidentally, this is the first time Tony’s ever needed back-up.

Groaning, Tony tries to sit up. There has to be bruising on his ribs or something, because every intake of breath sends a sharp, stabbing pain down his sides. “JARVIS, buddy,” Tony says, watching through the HUD as the villain-of-the-week walks toward him with her arms wide open, stormy blue tendrils of what looks like magic dancing on her outstretched palms, “I need good news here.”

“Unfortunately sir, power is down ninety percent.”

Tony lets out a weak chuckle. “That’s really not what I want to hear.”

“Iron Man,” the lady calls out, her white pupils completely focused on Tony, “I’ve been waiting for this moment. I’ve been watching you, and now I get to make you learn your lesson.”

Slowly, Tony moves as much as he can away from her, his breaths coming out in labored gasps as he moves backwards. He needs to stall for as long as he can so Cap can join the party, and for that to happen, he needs to keep her talking.

“What lesson? I’m a great learner, you know. We probably could have skipped the fight and went straight to the learning.”

The lady narrows her eyes at him, and before Tony knows it, she’s right in front of him, her eyes looking right into the faceplate as she crouches over him. And that—that’s just unfair.

“Really? You have super-speed too? What  _don’t_  you have?”

“Listen to me,” the lady says, her hands falling to her sides. This close, her eyes seem even whiter, if that was even possible. “You think I don’t know who you are? You hide behind a mask and armor, but you’re just Tony Stark. I’ve seen you bed men and women, and then leave them. I’ve seen you break hearts.”

Tony grits his teeth against the pain. “Now that’s not fair. I haven’t done that in months.”  _Not since Cap woke up_ , Tony carefully doesn’t add.

It seems like the lady heard what he didn’t say anyway, because she smiles at him, her dark red lips stretching wide in a menacing smile. “I’ve seen you look at him, too,” she says, her right hand reaching for his faceplate. “It’s time for you to learn your lesson.”

Where the fuck is Cap?

Tony has to stall. “Wait—”

“No more waiting,” the lady says, shaking her head. “Since you’re so fond of leaving men and women heartbroken, I am turning you into a cat. You will remain one until you find someone you love to love you as you are.” The lady tilts her head to the side. “You won’t hurt anyone then.”

A flash of dark blue light, and then she’s gone.

And Tony—well.

_You have got to be fucking kidding me_.

 

 

 

He’s a cat.

He’s a fucking cat.

He’s a fucking cat stuck in a suit of red and gold armor, and unless he’s somehow managed to code JARVIS into understanding cat-speak, he can’t speak to his own AI and expect to be understood.

That doesn’t stop him from trying to talk to JARVIS anyway.

_Get me out of here, J, buddy_ , Tony tries to say, but all that comes out is a long whine. The suit is, thankfully, big enough for his cat-form to fit in the torso, but it’s starting to feel a little claustrophobic, especially since JARVIS can’t understand him like this. Add to that the growing—and valid—concern that someone might find his armor unattended like this and steal it for personal gain, and it’s not long before he’s breathing too quickly for it to be healthy, his vision swimming.

What do you know? Cats can go into shock, apparently.

“Sir?” JARVIS’ voice is panicked.

Tony closes his eyes and forces himself to breathe. He opens his eyes, puts one paw forward—and  _fuck_  if that isn’t weird—and starts drawing Morse. It’s slow, painstakingly so, but he moves his paw until every dot and every dash he wants JARVIS to see has been drawn.

“Protocol Icarus, sir?” JARVIS asks, sounding unsure.

_Yep_ , Tony tries to say, but all that comes out is a pitiful mew.  _Damn it._

It’s entirely too tempting to let JARVIS fly the suit home with him in it. Even with the main arc reactor gone, the suit should be able to get back to the tower using the back-up juice he installed in the repulsors themselves. Problem is, if the lady  _is_  telling the truth about the spell not being broken until he finds that  _someone_ , being in the tower won’t be any use to him. Sure, Pepper and Happy and Rhodey may love him, but he has a feeling this lady wants him to find someone new, because nothing in his life is ever  _that_  easy.

He should just wait for Cap, honestly. He feels his tail twitch in happiness at the thought.

Christ, this is weird.

“Are you sure, sir?”

Tony meows.

Almost immediately, the suit opens, the sound of the latches unlocking seemingly too loud in the small space. The moment he can, Tony leaps out of the suit, turning around just in time to see the suit lock up once more and take to the skies, the repulsors’ blue light becoming duller and duller the further the suit gets from him.

When he can no longer see the suit, Tony looks back down at his paws and forces himself to walk forward. He needs to get to SHIELD, somehow. He needs to find someone, anyone, because now he’s truly alone.

What was he thinking? He should have flown in the suit with JARVIS. He could have at least camped out in the penthouse while trying to figure this all out. He could have somehow called Fury, could have communicated with JARVIS to see if there were any legitimate-looking magicians around who could solve this little problem for him.

He tries to remind himself to take deep steady breaths, to at least look at where he’s going, but it’s not working. His heartbeat is too loud in his ears, he can feel his tail where it’s tucked between his legs in fear, and oh God he needs to lie down because the world isn’t supposed to look like that, even with his decidedly shittier cat-vision.

He hadn’t even managed to last eight minutes with Crazy Magic Lady.

Absently walking around the cops putting up yellow caution tape and the crowd of people starting to form about half a block away from where Tony had lain on the cracked asphalt, Tony tries to focus instead on regulating his breathing. The crowd isn’t helping him calm down, so he runs, runs until he’s at least half a block away from them, until he can hear his heartbeat in his ears and he can feel the burn in his smaller-than-usual lungs.

He doesn’t think the crowd was there when he got out of the suit, but preoccupied as he was, he could have easily missed that little detail. Fuck, he hopes they weren’t there, because things will get very ugly, very fast if they were.

Breathing hard, Tony blinks and stumbles against a wall. He needs to recuperate somewhere. He needs to lie low for a little while, needs to find somewhere to crash and something to eat, needs to—

“Hey, are you all right, little fella?”

Tony blinks and looks up. And up. And up. And up.

The man before him is  _gorgeous_. Dressed in a simple, white shirt that looks three sizes too small and a pair of dark-wash jeans, the man before him looks like the kind of person Tony would invite back to his place, if only he could, you know, actually talk instead of meow. Tony looks at the man’s face and wishes, not for the first time, that he was human again, because these cat-eyes really aren’t doing any justice to the blueness of his eyes, or the dirty blond of his hair, or the gorgeous pink hue of those lips.

The best part about him, Tony thinks, is his smell. He smells like clean sweat and freshly brewed coffee. He smells like safety and comfort and somehow, he smells like  _home_ , even though Tony can also somehow smell fear and worry from him. He looks at the black easel bag on the man’s shoulder and, weirdly enough, smells the familiar and comforting smell of clean leather and metal instead of the sharp tang of paint that he was expecting.

Breathing heavily, the man crouches down and carefully brings forward a broad hand to touch Tony’s head.

Tony lets out a contented meow as he feels clever fingers pet the top of his head. He feels his tail rise from between his legs as the fear gripping him slowly fades away.

The man chuckles. “Listen,” he says, looking up from Tony, “I need to get somewhere, all right? A friend might be in danger. You look better now, so you probably don’t need me around.” He starts to stand up, and Tony finds himself leaning his head further back than he’s ever had to before just to look at a person’s eyes. “I’ll see you around.”

The man then proceeds to jog away from Tony and towards the street where Tony and Crazy Magic Lady fought, which,  _no_.

So Tony chases him and runs as fast as he can, which isn’t too fast considering his lungs are still burning from the lack of oxygen. Before he knows it, he’s back in the crowd again, deftly avoiding being trampled and stopping right beside Cute Blond Guy who’s right in front of the yellow caution tape and is trying to get the cop’s attention.

“Sir, you have to let me in. My friend—he was there earlier, I need to—”

The cop waves a hand dismissively. “The entire block’s secured. No one’s there. Your friend should be safe somewhere else.”

Cute Blond Guy shakes his head. “But sir—”

“Sorry kid,” the cop says, unapologetic, “but I can’t. It’s too much of a hazard. Tell you what, let me know what the name of your friend is, and we’ll see if they were sent to an emergency room somewhere.”

Tony tilts his head. He’d been careful, and weirdly enough, the lady had been careful too. She hadn’t seemed interested in targeting civilians, which made evacuation easier for the cops. Despite her disinterest in the civilians, Tony had still instructed the police to evacuate civilians as far as two blocks away in all directions, knowing that this villain-of-the-week was powerful and dangerous and possibly someone Tony couldn’t handle by himself.

Sometimes he hates being right.

The fight had been over in under eight minutes though. No one should have been sent to the emergency room.

“I—” Cute Blond Guy shakes his head. “It’s okay. I just—what happened?”

The cop shrugs. “Iron Man told us to stay back. We did. About two blocks away. Next thing we know, Iron Man’s in the sky, probably headed to Stark Tower, and the lady was gone. Just like that.”

Tony can smell the worry abating from Cute Blond Guy, but only just. It’s still there, but now it’s mostly masked by disappointment. “Oh. Well, uh, thanks I guess.”

The cop nods before walking away.

Cute Blond Guy turns around, and no, Tony’s not going to be ignored, thank you very much, not when he followed him here. Tony needs a place to stay, and he knows, somehow, that this guy is his ticket out of sleeping on the streets for the night.

Tony ignores that small part of him that smells the loneliness this guy feels. He’s only trying to go home with him because he knows Cute Blond Guy will feed him, not because he wants to cheer him up or anything, no sir.

_Hey Cute Blond Guy!_

Cute Blond Guy starts to walk away, fighting past the crowd trying to get closer to the yellow tape.

Fuck this.

Tony meows as loud as he can, careful to stay right behind Cute Blond Guy so he won’t lose him. Somehow, Cute Blond Guy hears him, and he turns around, his eyebrows raising when he sees Tony following him.

Just then, however, the crowd becomes wilder, squeezing in on each other as members of the press start to arrive on the scene. Tony sees Cute Blond Guy start to crouch and reach for him, but before he can pick Tony up, someone manages to step right on Tony’s foot— _paw_ —and Tony yelps, his eyes watering in pain.

“Oh geez,” Cute Blond Guy says as he finally picks Tony up, one hand immediately reaching for Tony’s paw and carefully massaging it. “When I said I’ll see you around, I didn’t mean  _follow me_.”

Tony, pressed as he is against Cute Blond Guy’s chest, takes a deep breath and feels his heartbeat slow down until he no longer feels like he’s about to burst a blood vessel. Cute Blond Guy will take care of him, he knows.

They eventually make their way out of the crowd. When they’re about five feet away from the edges of the crowd, Cute Blond Guy looks at Tony and squints.

Tony, not knowing what else to do, squints back.

Cute Blond Guy laughs, his eyes crinkling at the edges in amusement. The hand that was carefully massaging Tony’s paw comes up then to carefully scratch right under his chin, and  _oh yeah_ , that’s the spot right there.

Tony purrs.

“Hi there, little guy,” Cute Blond Guy says, a smile playing on his lips. “My name’s Steve. You don’t seem to have a collar, so I really don’t know what to call you.”

_You can call me Tony,_ Tony says, but of course, all of that comes out is a meow.

Steve chews on his bottom lip. “You don’t have a collar, so you must be a stray. You look too well-groomed to be a stray, though. Should I bring you to the shelter?”

Tony freezes. His tail freezes with the rest of his body too.  _Please don’t_ , he tries to say, looking up at Cute Blond Guy— _Steve_ —with the saddest puppy-dog look Tony can manage in his cat form. Of course, the words come out as a soft mew, and Tony watches as Steve’s resolve to bring him to the shelter crumbles.

“All right,” Steve says, scratching under Tony’s chin once more. “I should still bring you to the vet, though. You should get a check-up, at least.”

Tony, for lack of a better word,  _cuddles_  against Steve’s chest. He’s warm and he’s safe and Steve will take care of him.

Steve can bring him to the vet if he wants. It’s fine.

 

 

 

It is decidedly  _not_  fine.

“Your cat’s okay, Mister Rogers,” the veterinarian says, mild-mannered as she adjusts the glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose, “however, I do have to ask if you’ve considered having your cat neutered. The health advantages are numerous, and—”

_I swear to God Steve, if you agree to have my balls cut off, I will end you_ , Tony hisses, sending a scathing look to the vet. He turns his head, intending to send Steve the same warning look, only to stop when he finds that amused look on Steve’s face, his lips pressed together in the way that Tony already knows means he’s trying to stop himself from laughing out loud.

“I think we’re all right with not getting that done,” Steve says, grinning. “He looks like he understood what you just said, and I’d rather get along with him than not, so.”

_Oh, thank God_.  _I could kiss you right now. Or, you know, whenever you’d like._

“All right,” the vet says, obviously not pleased. “What about vaccinations? Or a microchip?”

“I, uh. We’ll think about it,” Steve says, reaching into his pocket for his ringing phone. “Sorry, excuse me.”

Tony, sensing that this check-up is pretty much done anyway, glares at the vet one last time before hopping off the examination table and following Steve out the office. Steve, the observant guy that he is, thoughtfully keeps the door open for him as he walks out, tail swishing behind him.

All in all, he’d consider this day a success. Sure, he might have been turned into a cat, but he’s found a great person to take care of him, he’s avoided being given shots for diseases he’s not even fully sure he’ll be able to get, and, most importantly, he’s getting out of the vet clinic with his balls intact.

Universe: 0; Tony: 1. Or really, universe: 1; Tony: 3, if we’re being accurate.

Never let it be said that Tony’s not an optimist.

“Hey, Nat,” Steve says, walking towards the plastic chairs placed against the wall in the waiting room and sitting down with a small sigh. Tony immediately leaps into Steve’s lap, curling up and huffing contentedly when Steve’s fingers automatically burrow themselves in his thick black fur.

This is nice. This is more than nice. Tony likes this open affection, the feeling of a warm and careful hand and knowing that Steve’s not expecting anything—money, sex, or tech—in return. It may just be a side-effect of being a cat, but if Tony’s being totally honest with himself, he’s always been a bit touch-starved.

Tony stretches out on Steve’s lap, purring when Steve’s fingers scratch the backs of his ears.

He might as well milk this for all he’s got.

“Yeah, no. The date was a disaster,” Steve says, shaking his head. “No, I got there too late. I ran as soon as I got the call, but he wasn’t there anymore when I finally made it there.” Steve pauses, humming under his breath as he listens to whoever is on the phone—Nat, Tony remembers, whoever they may be.

“I’m actually at a vet clinic. No, different kind of vet—I seem to have, uh, adopted a cat. Actually, it’s more like the cat adopted me,” Steve says, amused.

_Damn right I did_ , Tony meows, and Steve might just be part magic because bless his soul, he lets out a laugh that sounds like he just understood what Tony was saying.

“No, I’m heading back. I’ll probably stop by a pet store and get some essentials, but I’m done for the rest of the day. Yeah, no, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Steve finally says, hanging up. He looks at Tony for a few moments, and Tony looks right back at him, wishing he could tell what it is he’s thinking of.

With one hand, Steve scoops Tony out of his lap and secures him across his chest, and Tony almost purrs at the sight of that curled bicep, because  _hello_. He’d been busy cuddling up to Steve’s chest so much that he hadn’t even paid his arms the attention they deserve.

“So what should I call you, huh?” Steve muses aloud, one hand pushing open the door as they exit the clinic.

_Tony_ , Tony meows, looking up at Steve.

Steve smiles. He looks down at Tony for a moment before tilting his head back up to watch where they’re going. “You know I can’t actually understand your meowing, even though you seem to understand English, which is strange, by the way.”

It’s weird, not being able to shrug. Tony tries anyway. It doesn’t work well, especially with the thick fur he has going on.

“You don’t seem like you wanted shots or one of those fancy microchips either,” Steve says, stopping as they reach a street corner. There doesn’t seem to be a car passing by any time soon, but Steve stands still anyway, waiting for the pedestrian crossing sign to appear. It’s weirdly endearing. “I really do need to get you a collar, though.”

_Do you really need to get me a collar?_  It comes out as a low whine, and Tony feels Steve’s chest move from beneath his ear, hears Steve’s laugh as it travels up his chest and out his mouth.

This man is too cute for his own good.

“I know buddy, but what if you get lost?” Steve starts moving again, walking across the road with quick, easy strides. “I don’t want anyone bringing you to the shelter just because they can’t tell who owns you.”

_Fine_ , Tony meows.

“What do you want me to call you?” Steve asks again, like he thinks that maybe this time, he’ll be able to understand what Tony says. “If we’re getting you a collar, I need a name. Maybe I’ll name you after a friend, how about that?”

_Eh. Can’t be that bad_.

“You don’t look like a Sam though,” Steve muses.

Tony spies the newspaper stand just a few feet from them and gets an idea. Without warning, he leaps from Steve’s arm, immediately heading to the newspaper stand as fast as his paws can carry him. He doesn’t stop until he’s right in front the section where all the tabloids are, and sure enough, National Enquirer has his name on the cover, proclaiming that he has a secret son in Europe with a member of the royal family.

He jumps, one hand reaching forward to swipe the tabloid off the table.

“What the fuck? Get that cat off before I—”

Steve finally catches up then, already sending an apologetic look to the newsstand owner. “I’m sorry, I’ll pay for the—” Steve glances at the tabloid Tony is currently holding with his mouth clamped over the pages and his eyebrows rise. “—tabloid. Sorry about that.”

The newsstand owner harrumphs, but he sits back down on his stool inside the little booth.

“Here you go,” Steve says, handing over some change. He then looks at Tony, his eyebrows furrowed as he crouches down. He grabs the tabloid with one hand and Tony with the other, turning around and walking away from the newsstand.

“You’re strange,” Steve says, but he glances at the tabloid anyway, his lips curving down in a small frown before looking back at Tony. “I know cats are supposed to be smart, but you’re something else.”

It’s weird, not being able to smile. Instead, Tony purrs, settling further into Steve’s chest.

“What’s the tabloid for, anyway?” Steve asks, crossing yet another street. “I can’t say I approve of your taste in literature. I’m not too fond of gossip rags.”

_You wanted to know what to call me_ , Tony meows, knowing Steve will pay attention. Sure enough, Steve looks at him, something like an almost expectant look on his face.  _Show me the tabloid?_ Tony meows, tilting his head to the side as he brings forward one paw and points it at the tabloid in Steve’s other hand.

Steve’s eyebrows furrow even more. He looks up, stops in front of a Starbucks glass window to avoid getting in the way of pedestrians, and gingerly holds up the tabloid to Tony’s face, hesitant in the way that Tony just knows means “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

_That’s my name_ , Tony meows, placing his paw on the “Tony”. He taps it twice for emphasis.  _Call me Tony_.

“Tony?” Steve asks, confused.

_Yup_.

Tony watches as Steve’s eyebrows furrow even further, before his expression clears up in realization. “Oh! You want me to call you Tony?”

_Bingo_. Tony tucks his paw back underneath his body and settles into Steve’s chest once more.

“Huh,” Steve says, walking once more. “You really are something else, Tony.”

Tony purrs.

 

 

 

They eventually make their way to a Petco. Steve grabs a red shopping cart, puts Tony in, then puts his black easel bag in as well, careful not to hit Tony with it.

From this point of view, Petco seems enormous. Tony looks at the bright fluorescent lighting, looks at the various items on display, and settles in for the ride, only looking up whenever Steve stops.

Steve, bless his heart, doesn’t stop communicating with Tony, even though he clearly can’t understand Tony as much as Tony would like. Sure, Tony can point with his paw, can meow in agreement and hiss in (extreme) disagreement, but it’s not like Tony can expressly let Steve know in no uncertain terms that  _no,_ a bright blue collar with ‘Tony’ spelled in sparkling decorative charms is  _not okay_  when Steve hums thoughtfully in front of a salesperson trying to convince him to give it a try. Steve looks at him, expectant, and Tony hisses, tail whipping back and forth, thumping on the plastic bottom of the shopping cart.

The salesperson shoots Tony a slightly worried look. Good.

In the end, Steve settles on a plain black collar with a gold, circular tag. He gets Tony’s name engraved on the tag, along with his number. While waiting for the engraving to be finished, Steve walks around the store, grabbing items he thinks Tony will need and holding them up to get either Tony’s approval or disapproval.

Steve ends up getting a lot of stuff. He gets both dry and wet cat food, cat litter, a litter box, a leash—“Just in case,” Steve had said when he had seen Tony’s disapproving look—a brush, a cat bed, stainless steel feeding and drinking bowls, an automatic cat feeder, a dental health kit, a scratching post, and some toys, including a small Iron Man plushie Steve had chuckled at upon seeing.

Tony feels a little guilty when he sees just how much Steve spent on him. The cashier scans the scratching posts, and Tony looks away, already promising himself that he will pay Steve back as soon as he’s human again, whenever that will happen. As it is, Steve doesn’t look like he’s regretting any of the purchases he’s made so far, so at least there’s that.

While waiting for the rest of the items to be scanned, Steve carefully puts the collar around Tony, making sure that it’s not too loose or too tight. When Tony looks up, Steve’s smiling at him fondly.

It’s a little weird, feeling his heart beat overtime just because of that one look, especially since he doesn’t have the arc reactor to blame it on. Also, he’s a fucking cat, so there’s that. So instead of thinking about it too much like he would if he were back to normal, he butts his head against Steve’s hand instead, letting his tail twitch in happiness when Steve’s smile grows.

When all of Tony’s new cat stuff—and really, that won’t stop being weird anytime soon—is put away, Steve grabs his easel bag and Tony in one hand, and all the Petco plastic bags in the other. They quickly make their way out of the store, and Steve hails a cab.

Steve’s apartment, when they finally make it there, is spartan at best, sad at worst. When Steve opens the front door and carefully places Tony on the scratched hardwood floor, Tony immediately pads forward, head tilted back to take in his surroundings.

The entire apartment feels suspended in time, somehow. Every piece of furniture Steve owns looks old and barely used, and when Steve turns on a lamp, the living room is bathed in the kind of artificial yellow that somehow reminds him of sepia-toned photographs. The only truly modern thing in the living room is a TV set, but even that’s barely used, protective plastic still covering the edges of the screen.

Tony follows Steve into the bedroom, which is equally as simple-looking as the living room. When Steve opens the closet door and places his easel bag inside, leaning it against the wall, Tony sees a few pieces of clothing and, interestingly, an old-looking army dress service uniform.

Leaving Steve to himself, Tony exits the room and explores the other parts of the apartment. The kitchen is equally as uninteresting as the rest of the apartment. The bathroom is only slightly less uninteresting than the kitchen, but that’s only because it has a full-length mirror on the back of the door, and Tony, for the first time since he’s been turned into a cat, can finally look at himself.

It’s one thing to know you’ve been (temporarily) turned into a cat; it’s another to actually see yourself as a cat.

It’s fucking weird.

While Tony has mostly black fur, his underbelly and his paws are snow-white. When he sits on his hind paws, he looks at the dark round spot surrounded by white fur in the middle of his chest. That’s where the arc reactor would have been, if he were human again, Tony knows.

Tony lies down, turning his head sideways and leaning it against the cold, tiled floor.

He’s going to be here for a little while.

 

 

 

Steve is annoyingly endearing.

He shoots Tony smiles whenever Tony butts his head against his hand, scratches the backs of Tony’s ears with enviable precision, and chuckles under his breath when Tony purrs and stretches out on the couch cushions beside him. He’s always careful whenever he has to take Tony off his lap, and he always smells fond whenever Tony hops back on.

Steve is also lonely.

Tony can smell it on him, the apartment pervaded with the choking smell of it. Tony does his best to cheer him up while in cat-form, but there’s really nothing else he can do but butt his head against any part of Steve’s he can reach. He would lick him to try and make him feel better, but Tony feels like doing that would be crossing a line.

Steve talks out loud in his apartment, even when the apartment is empty save for him and Tony. He needs the noise, Tony realizes as Steve reads the tabloid he bought earlier, and he meows, just when Steve starts reading the paragraph about how Tony is secretly dating duchess Kate.

“What is it?” Steve asks, looking away from the tabloid in his hand. His other hand doesn’t stop petting Tony.

_I wish I met you before I got turned into a cat,_ Tony meows without thinking, and for the first time since he’s been turned into a cat, he’s grateful that Steve can’t understand him, not really.

Where did that even come from? He’s known this guy for barely a day. Is his cat-form really  _that_  starved for affection?

Steve’s tone is apologetic. “I can’t understand you, Tony. I wish I could.”

_You’re something else, Steve_ , Tony meows.

Eventually, however, Steve has to get off the couch and make dinner. Tony slinks after him, slightly annoyed that his warm pillow moved, but even he can’t ignore the rumbling of his own stomach any longer. Steve thoughtfully places Tony’s new drinking and feeding bowls near the dining table before he starts making his own dinner.

Tony, thinking about the way Steve talks to him like he somehow expects him to speak English, turns back around and hops onto the couch, placing one paw on the remote. He turns on the TV and puts it on the news, turning the volume up. When he’s done, he looks up, his tail twitching in a pleased manner when he sees the look Steve’s sending him from the kitchen threshold, amusement warring with disbelief.

_I am a genius, you know_ , Tony meows, leaping off the couch and heading back to his bowls. God, cat food has never looked more appetizing. It’s weird.

Steve, to his credit, doesn’t turn the TV off. Instead, he walks back to the kitchen and resumes making his dinner despite the confusion.

Tony eyes the wet cat food before him with a little skepticism. The gravy smells good, but God, never did Tony think he would end up eating cat food even once in his life. Hesitantly, he licks at it, and before he knows it, he’s digging in, his small tongue working overtime to take in as much food as he can. It’s weird, not having fingers to eat, and Tony pauses, mourning the loss of his opposable thumbs.

After they’ve finished eating, Steve takes Tony’s bowls and his plates to the sink. Tony watches as Steve washes them by hand, quick and methodical, then follows Steve back to the living room when he’s finished with the dishes.

“How come you don’t want to play with your new toys, huh?” Steve asks, sitting down on the couch with a small sigh.

Tony leaps onto Steve’s lap and settles in, curling into himself.  _I’d rather keep you company_.

It’s a while before Steve finally turns the TV off and stands up, carrying Tony against his chest. Tony lazily opens his eyes, watches Steve make sure the front door is locked, and closes his eyes once more.

In the bedroom, Steve finally puts Tony down in his own, new cat bed. Tony opens his eyes, then promptly turns his head to the side when he sees Steve undressing in front of him. He sees a glimpse of his bare chest and he closes his eyes, feeling, for the first time in his life since he was fourteen, awkward about seeing a man undress in front of him.

It’s the fact that Steve doesn’t know Tony-the-cat is actually Tony Stark-the-genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist, really. Tony can’t look at this man undress with good conscience, knowing that Steve doesn’t know the truth about him.

“Good night, Tony,” Steve says as he turns off the light.

_Good night, Steve._

 

 

 

A shout, and then a heavy gasp, and Tony blinks his eyes open, for once woken up by someone else’s nightmare.

Tony’s vision takes a shorter time to adjust to the light than his mind takes to adjust to the situation. In just a few moments, he remembers that yeah, he’s been turned into a cat, and yeah, that’s Steve—

_Steve!_  Tony meows, leaping onto Steve’s bed. He’s still asleep, but there’s sweat on his forehead and his body is shaking and his lips are moving as he talks to someone who isn’t there.

_Wake up, Steve, come on._ Tony places a paw on Steve’s heaving chest and meows as loud as he can, hoping that Steve will wake up.

No luck.

His heart beating painfully in his chest as he watches Steve’s face twist in agony, Tony meows even louder. Steve’s pained shout is louder than Tony’s meow, however, and Tony watches as Steve remains a prisoner of his own mind, his nightmare causing his body to shake under the sheets.

Fuck it.

Tony pokes Steve’s hand with his claws, wincing when Steve shoots upright, immediately looking at Tony as if to make sure he isn’t a threat before pressing his hand to his chest. Tony watches as Steve continues to gasp for breath, and when there still isn’t any improvement after a few minutes, he finally makes his way onto Steve’s lap and lies down above the covers.

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve murmurs later, much later, when his breathing has settled and he has his fingers burrowed in Tony’s fur once more.

_You’re welcome, Steve_.

 

 

 

The next few days are built on a routine.

Every morning, Steve wakes up at the ass crack of dawn to jog down the streets of New York. Tony, for the most part, stays curled up on Steve’s pillow until Steve gets back from his jog and goes straight to the shower.

Being a cat is boring. When Steve leaves for work, dressed in jeans, a simple shirt, and with that easel bag slung on his shoulder, Tony is all but driven insane from sheer boredom. He tries playing with the cat toys Steve bought once to see if his cat instincts will let him enjoy them and, hopefully, pass the time with them, but it’s not long before he just feels weird about the entire thing and he stops, feeling used and a little bit like he just threw away part of what dignity he still has. Instead, he looks at the Iron Man plushie and sighs.

Eventually, the TV becomes Tony’s friend. He ends up binge-watching soap operas he would never admit to watching once he’s back to human, watches sitcoms and crime procedurals and hurls insults at the TV, safe in the knowledge that no one can hear him.

Once, he tries to connect to JARVIS using Steve’s laptop. Steve’s laptop, like most things in his apartment, is mostly unused, and when Tony turns it on with a steady paw, the laptop immediately shows the desktop.

Steve hadn’t even bothered protecting it with a password. Hell, he hadn’t even closed it. To be fair, it’s not like he has to fear anyone else in his apartment using his laptop without his permission, so he at least has that excuse going for him.

Pressing keyboard keys is extremely difficult. Tony’s paw keeps on pressing more keys than he would like, so in the end, he gives up on trying to code so he can reach JARVIS or even SHIELD. Instead, he ends up on Captain America’s Instagram account once more, huffing when he doesn’t see a new post.

Where the hell was Cap when Tony was fighting Crazy Magic Lady a few days ago? There isn’t an Instagram picture showing him on the scene after the fight, helping with clean-up like he usually does afterwards, so that must mean he hadn’t stopped by at all.

When Steve gets back to the apartment in the afternoon, Tony usually greets him by the door, his heart giving a funny little flip in his chest whenever he sees Steve light up at the sight of him. He always smells tired, but Steve always has that little smile reserved for him, his fingers immediately scratching under Tony’s chin whenever he greets him by the door.

At night, Tony doesn’t even pretend to head to his own pet bed anymore. Instead, he heads right for Steve’s bed, curling up beside Steve’s head and closing his eyes. It’s nice, letting Steve’s steady breaths lull him to sleep. He’s forgotten how much he likes the presence of another person near him.

The first few nights Tony stays on Steve’s bed, he gets woken up, like clockwork, by Steve’s nightmares consuming him in his sleep. Though he can’t exactly tell Steve just how much he knows what it’s like, being stuck in the same nightmare every night, he places his paw on Steve’s hand and tries waking him to the best of his ability. Every single time, Steve wakes up. And every single time, he smiles at Tony, grateful, before rubbing Tony’s head. After a few days, Steve’s nightmares become less violent, and Tony only has to put the slightest pressure of a paw on Steve’s arm to get him to calm down.

His crush on Steve only grows. Whenever Steve has time, he reads the books on his shelf in the living room, a collection that ranges from classic sci-fi to World War II nonfiction, from fantasy to political memoirs. He reads them out loud with Tony on his lap, and Tony always lets himself drift off into a peaceful haze, only shaking himself out of it when Steve needs to get up from the couch.

Tony sees firsthand what kind of artist Steve is. Once, after his nap on Steve’s lap has been disturbed by Steve needing to go to the bathroom, he spies Steve’s open sketchbook on the coffee table, a beautifully detailed sketch of him as a cat present on the page. Tony, making sure that Steve’s not in the room, leaps onto the table and noses the sketchbook to flip to another page, only to reveal another sketch of him, this time in the form of Iron Man.

In fact, the rest of the pages, Tony discovers, are actually almost all full of sketches of Iron Man. Every now and then, there would be a sketch of someone else, a partially-finished sketch of a laughing woman, a sketch of a man with a bow in his hands and a quiver of arrows strapped to his back, and once, a sketch of the New York skyline with the Stark Tower prominent in the background, but for the most part, the sketches are of him.

Tony looks at a sketch of him flying through the sky, and he doesn’t know what to think. What are the chances of him meeting someone who looks like they’re a fan of Iron Man? Sure, it’s not like Iron Man’s unpopular or anything, but him meeting someone who has a notebook that’s mostly filled with sketches of him? Unlikely.

Whatever suspicion Tony has built up against Steve, however, dissipates the moment Steve comes back to the living room and pets Tony’s fur. What was Tony even thinking? This is  _Steve_. Steve who, upon seeing his elderly neighbor Mrs. Jenkins about to cross the street from his window, immediately gestured for her to wait and ran out of the apartment to help her. Steve couldn’t be evil if he tried.

“That’s Iron Man,” Steve says, not even questioning the fact that his cat has been snooping through his sketchbook. “I’ve met him, you know. He’s a real hero.”

Tony blinks.  _You have? How come I don’t remember you? You’re not the type of person you just forget about, Steve._

Maybe that’s why he sounded so familiar when Tony first met him as a cat. Still, Tony can’t quite believe that he’s met this man before and forgotten him so easily.

“Nat’s been telling me that cats really don’t act the way you do,” Steve continues, oblivious to Tony’s question. “I’ve never had a pet before, so I wouldn’t know. I mean, I did notice that you seem to be smarter than the average cat, but other than that, I really have no idea how you’re supposed to act or how I’m supposed to take care of you.”

_You’re doing fine, Steve,_ Tony meows, butting his head against the side of Steve’s thigh.  _You’re doing more than fine._

“You’re fine though, right?” Steve asks in that sincere tone of his, as if he actually expects Tony to answer. “I might not know what I’m doing, but you’re still here, so I must be doing something right.” He chuckles to himself, and Tony smells that loneliness again, and he hates it with an intensity that surprises him. “Thanks, Tony. For being here.”

And Tony, for all that he’s been itching to build something for the past few days, for all the boredom that he’s been experiencing, for all the anxiety he’s been feeling at the thought of never getting to turn back into human again, can’t bring himself to regret any part of being a cat, not when it means he gets to see Steve smile at him like that when he gets home, and especially not when Steve’s actively thanking him for making his days a little more bearable.

Tony feels the telltale butterflies in his stomach and he lies down, collapsing against Steve’s thigh with his paws outstretched.

_I think I’m falling in love with you._

 

 

 

Everything’s fine until, of course, everything turns to shit.

About three days after Tony realizes that he would really much rather be Steve’s boyfriend than his cat, Steve turns on the TV to the news that Tony Stark is missing. Tony leaps onto the couch and stares, unseeing, at the TV as Pepper gives an official press statement. He’s been gone for about a week now, she says, and the last time anyone’s been in contact with him, he had been in his workshop, working on his projects.

Rhodey, stoic except for the worry Tony can clearly see in his eyes, is standing behind and to the left of Pepper, his eyes constantly scanning the crowd. Happy, openly tense, is standing right beside him.

Tony feels his heart pang. He should have tried harder to get out of Steve’s apartment and get to either SHIELD or the tower, but Tony knows that would be a bad idea. He may be a genius, but he’s still a cat. There’s only so much he can do.

Two days after the announcement, things get worse.

Around midday, when Steve’s at work and Tony’s watching TV, General Hospital is interrupted by a special news report about an honest-to-God giant octopus in Queens. Tony sits up when he sees Cap, dressed up in his usual blue uniform and helmet as he ducks under one of the tentacles and neatly slices another with his signature shield. Iron Man isn’t fighting with him today of course, but there is a woman with red hair and a blond archer helping him take down the giant octopus, one tentacle at a time.

It seems like he’s not the only one who’s noticed Iron Man’s absence, because when the fight’s over, one of the first questions the media asks Cap is, “where’s Iron Man?” By this time, Cap’s two friends, ever elusive, have faded into the background. Cap, as always, is still on the scene helping with clean-up, so he ends up being the one questioned by the press.

“I, uh—no comment,” Cap says on screen, and Tony instantly knows that Cap is both unsettled by the question and worried about him, or rather, Iron Man.

It’s only to be expected, Tony reasons, that Cap would be awkward about answering the media’s questions since Tony had always answered for the both of them before, knowing just how unused Cap was—or really,  _is_ —to the modern world and how in-your-face everything generally is nowadays. Still, it doesn’t alleviate the guilt festering in his chest. He and Cap were starting to be friends—if they weren’t  _already_  friends—and the fact that Iron Man isn’t there to help Cap slowly adjust to the idea of being a public personality frustrates the hell out of Tony.

He should be there. He can’t stay here forever. As lovely as Steve is, Tony has a life to get back to and friends to come home to.

Then again—what even is his plan? He’s still a cat, for fuck’s sake. It’s not like he can meow Pepper into believing him, and it’s not like Fury would even let him near. He’s pretty sure SHIELD isn’t particularly pet-friendly.

Tony tries to imagine Fury cooing over a cat and immediately has to shake his head to clear the image from his mind. It’s a little unsettling.

“Is it concerning you that Iron Man isn’t here?” another reporter asks, shoving the microphone in Cap’s face.

“What—of course,” Cap says, vehement. “He’s my friend. Of course, I’m concerned.”

Tony feels his tail twitch in happiness. So they  _are_  friends, then. It’s always nice to be validated.

“When did you last communicate with Iron Man?” another reporter asks.

That had been three weeks ago, Tony thinks. He had flown Cap from SHIELD HQ to Staten Island so they could both fight the dragon that just showed up out of nowhere. Tony feels himself shiver, thinking of his arm around Cap’s waist. After the fight, Cap had smiled at him and said, “thanks for the ride, Shellhead,” and Tony hadn’t been able to focus on anything else for the rest of the day except for Cap’s smile and the phantom feeling of Cap’s warm side against the palm of Tony’s hand.

He would have gladly offered him other kinds of rides too, but Iron Man isn’t as brazen as Tony Stark is.

On the screen, Cap shakes his head, visibly confused. “I—what? No comment. Why do you ask?”

“It’s no secret that Iron Man is Tony Stark’s bodyguard,” the reporter says, voice clear over the distant sounds of clean-up happening in the background. “Just two days ago, Miss Virginia Potts announced that Tony Stark has been missing for a week, and that their search and rescue attempts have been unsuccessful. Now, Iron Man isn’t present to fight a villain in New York for the first time in months. Isn’t that too much of a coincidence?”

“What are you saying?” Cap asks, visibly tense, and no, oh no, didn’t anyone at SHIELD tell Cap that he shouldn’t keep talking to the media when they’re baiting him like this?

That’s the way Cap is, though. He’s stubborn, almost to a fault, and that defining characteristic isn’t going to fade away just because he’s dealing with the media instead of the villain of the week.

“I’m saying, well. What if Iron Man went rogue?” the reporter asks, looking Cap straight in the eye. “What if Iron Man is responsible for Tony Stark going missing?”

Tony—stops. His tail stops wagging, his breath freezes in his tiny lungs, and he just. Stops.

Because this? This is going from bad to  _worse._

“That’s ridiculous,” Cap immediately says, shaking his head. “I know Iron Man. He’s my friend. He would never do that. I know how dedicated he is to Mr. Stark.”

“How well do you really know him, though?” the reporter asks, obviously goading Steve into doing or saying something incriminating. “Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, you don’t know him as well as you think?”

The crowd of reporters go wild, pushing their microphones into Cap’s face as they ask their own questions, all related to how Iron Man might be behind Tony Stark’s disappearance.

Tony’s heart pangs painfully in his chest when he sees Cap, visibly overwhelmed, start to walk backwards.

He should be there. He needs to be there.

How the fuck is he going to get there?

 

 

 

Logging onto Steve’s computer, Tony finds out three things:

  * Cap has a new Instagram post from today’s clean-up, probably to make up for the public PR disaster that was him dealing with the media;
  * Stark Industries stock has dropped more than 35% since Pepper had the press conference;
  * Every single news site thinks Iron Man abducted Tony Stark.



When Steve gets home that night, smelling more exhausted than usual, Tony immediately pads over to him and butts his head against his leg. Steve, upon seeing him, smiles and picks him up, his large hand warm around Tony’s body.

Tony settles against Steve’s chest as much as he can, and he smells the frustration mixed in with the exhaustion, smells sweat, and dust, and, oddly enough, blood.

What the hell does Steve do for a living?

“Hey Tony,” Steve says, smiling down at him as he closes the door behind him. “I missed you too, buddy. It’s been an awful day.”

_You’re telling me,_ Tony meows, thinking about the news report.  _The world thinks I kidnapped myself._

Steve’s phone rings from inside his pocket, and he puts Tony back down on the floor, one hand reaching in to grab his phone. “Hello?”

Tony, not really having anything else to do, follows Steve to his bedroom, watching when Steve carefully leans his easel bag against the wall inside his closet, and averting his eyes when Steve starts stripping off his shirt.

That chest is going to be a part of his spank bank for the months to come. Tony’s sure of it. Once, you know, he’s back to being human and having the ability to access his spank bank, that is.

“No, ah—it’s fine,” Steve continues. “It was awful, but what else were we going to do? I couldn’t ask you to stay.”

Tony tilts his head, confused.

“No really, it’s fine, Nat.” Steve scrubs a hand down his face, sighing. “Yeah, no. It was a disaster, I agree with you.”

Steve sits down on the bed, still topless, and Tony jumps up, stopping himself from pressing a paw to Steve’s pec. Jesus, this guy is unreal.

Steve shoots him a smile, impossibly fond, and Tony feels those butterflies in his stomach act up again.

“What’s the plan now?” Steve asks, his fingers immediately burrowing themselves in Tony’s fur. “Yeah, no, you’re right. I’ll wait until tomorrow’s meeting, I guess. I’m just worried. He’s my friend. He wouldn’t do that.”

Steve hits a sensitive spot, and Tony purrs, stretching his paws out as he lies down.

“I’m fine, Nat. Tony’s helping. I’ve never had a pet before, but he seems to be okay, so I’m taking that as a good sign. I do feel guilty about leaving him in the apartment alone all day, though. Maybe I should leave him with the neighbors? I’m sure he’ll be great with kids.” Steve pauses. “Yeah, you’re right. He hasn’t had his shots yet, so maybe it’s for the best that he stay here.”

_We’re not getting those shots done at all,_ Tony meows.

“Actually, yeah I have a question. Is it possible that someone might have hacked into my computer?” Steve asks, looking at the laptop on his desk. “You set up the, uh, the browser—yeah, Google Chrome. You set it up to sync my phone and my computer, right?”

Tony pauses, looking up at Steve.

Oh shit.

Why the hell didn’t he delete the browser history? Or went online in incognito mode? Just because Steve’s apartment looks like a relic of the past doesn’t mean he’s stupid. Sure, he’s not at all as familiar with the internet or the TV as the common person, but Steve’s smart. He figures things out well enough on his own.

Including this, apparently.

“No, no, it doesn’t look like I’m in any immediate danger, it’s just. They keep looking at m—Captain America’s Instagram page? They searched for some other things, but they keep looking at that website.”

Well, Tony thinks, trying to relax once again under Steve’s fingers, at least they won’t suspect him.

 

 

 

In the evening, while Steve eats pizza and Tony tries to convince him to give him pizza too, Steve turns on the TV and sighs when he sees the news.

Tony looks at the news report and sighs, lying down and pillowing his head on his paws. Another story about him. Great.

It seems like Steve’s as frustrated at the news as he is, if not more, because Tony starts to smell that frustration again, something Steve has mostly showered off after his call with Nat, whoever they are. Tony watches as the reporter on screen comments about how Cap handled the questions, and he feels himself stiffen, his tail whipping back and forth in anger.

They caught him off-guard, and then they started coming for him like sharks hunting for prey.

“Do you think Iron Man went rogue?” one of the news anchors asks, turning to her co-worker. “What do you think?”

“Of course, he didn’t,” Steve murmurs, the furrow in his eyebrows tightening as the reporters on screen continue to debate Iron Man’s morality. “He’s a good man. One of the best of them.”

Tony looks up at that, his heart beating frantically in his chest. Over the few days he’s stayed here, he quickly learned that Steve doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean, that Steve is as genuine and sincere as, well, as Captain America himself, if Tony were truthful, so the fact that Steve said that and meant it?

_You’re too nice to me,_ Tony meows, setting back down on Steve’s lap and curling up.  _I don’t want to lose you when I’m back to human and you find out I’m Tony Stark._

It’s not like Steve has a bad opinion of Tony Stark, because he doesn’t. Come to think of it, he doesn’t really have an opinion of Tony as far as Tony knows, because he doesn’t talk about him often. Still, as much as Steve admires Iron Man, that admiration will fade away as soon as he finds out that Tony Stark  _is_  Iron Man, and Tony is sure of that. Tony Stark’s a mess wrapped up in a disaster. Iron Man isn’t.

“What do you think, Tony?” Steve asks, glancing at him for a moment before looking up to watch the TV once more. “You named yourself after Mister Stark. You’re pretty smart cat. I’m sure you have opinions.”

_Iron Man didn’t kidnap Tony Stark. This one crazy woman turned me into a fucking cat because she believes in true love, or whatever._

“I knew you’d agree with me,” Steve says, smiling. “Iron Man’s a great guy. He would never do that. I do have to wonder why he wasn’t at the fight earlier today, though. He usually is. I hope he’s all right.”

Tony abruptly stands up, tail whipping back and forth in excitement. He leaps off Steve’s lap, padding towards the corner where Steve put all his toys and his scratching post.

Steve’s been pretty good at communicating with Tony so far, so he might as well give this a shot, right?

He walks back to Steve and leaps onto his lap, the Iron Man plushie in his mouth.  _I am Iron Man_ , Tony meows, looking directly into Steve’s eyes as he drops the plushie onto Steve’s lap.  _Steve, I am Iron Man._

Steve’s eyebrows furrow as he looks down at the toy in obvious confusion. “You want to play? You’ve never wanted to before. I guess now is as good a time as any.”

_No, damn it,_ Tony meows.  _I am Iron Man. I don’t want to pla—_

“Here you go,” Steve says, throwing the plushie further than should be possible with his limited range on the couch. “Fetch, Tony!”

_I’m not a fucking dog_ , he meows, but he goes anyway, because, well, what do you know? Apparently cats have that instinct too.

Tony runs, grabbing the toy in his mouth and returning to Steve. He drops the toy on Steve’s feet.

Steve throws it again.

_Goddamn it._

 

 

 

Over the next few days, Tony keeps bringing Steve the toy to try and communicate with him, but to no avail. Every time Tony drops the plushie on Steve’s lap or on the ground, Steve keeps throwing it, thinking Tony wants to play. And every single time, Tony-the-cat grabs the toy and brings it back, his tail curling in that way that Tony just knows means he’s feeling playful.

Two days after the media accuses him of kidnapping himself, Tony switches on the TV to find Pepper holding yet another press conference, this time with Rhodey nowhere to be found. There are bags under her eyes that speak of worry for both him and the company, and Happy, situated right behind her, looks equally as tense as he scans the crowd over and over for just a hint of anything going amiss.

Tony sees them, and his heart hurts from both guilt and just plain loneliness. Steve’s great, yeah, and Tony can definitely see himself wanting to stick around and maybe take the guy on a date once he’s human, but he doesn’t want all that when his friends, the people he cares about most in the world, are worried sick about him. Pepper, the amazing woman that she is, looks and sounds like she has everything under control, but Tony knows just how worried she is. It’s in the way she holds herself, slightly more defensive than usual.

“We’ll be answering questions now,” Pepper says, then points at a reporter seated in the front row.

“What’s being done to look for Tony Stark?”

“Everything,” Pepper immediately answers. “Colonel James Rhodes has been coordinating searches with the Air Force, and we are on the lookout as well.”

“The Air Force?” the reporter asks. “Are there concerns that this may be another abduction in an attempt to obtain Stark weapons?”

“It may be. Right now, we know too little about the situation to dismiss any possible motive,” Pepper says, already pointing to another member of the press in the crowd.

“Does this mean you are considering the possibility that Iron Man may have abducted Tony Stark?”

_Christ_ , Tony hisses.  _Here we go again._

Pepper doesn’t know about Iron Man, and for good reason. There’s no doubt in Tony’s mind that letting her know the truth will only expose her to even more danger than she’s already exposed to just by virtue of being associated with Tony Stark. Happy doesn’t know about Iron Man either, and for the same reason; Tony wants to protect them as best as he can. As far as they both know, Iron Man is just one of Tony’s high-ranking bodyguards, authorized to put on the weaponized suit to save either him or humanity. Tony had stressed the importance of anonymity, and they—along with Rhodey—finally agreed to let the matter rest, even though Happy had been bitter about not being chosen to be the anonymous bodyguard in the suit.

Now though, Tony wishes at least  _one_  of them knew.

“Absolutely not,” Pepper says, her tone ringing with finality, and Tony sighs in relief. “He was one of Tony’s most trusted people. If anything, we’re worried that whoever took Tony took him as well.”

“Is there anything being done to look for Iron Man?”

Pepper nods. “We’re currently working with Captain America and SHIELD to locate him. From what I understand, Captain America and Iron Man are friends, and well. He volunteered, really.”

Tony’s tail gives a pleased little twitch.

“Is there any progress on trying to find Iron Man?” another member of the press asks. “What steps are being taken to ensure full cooperation between your company and SHIELD? Are they to be trusted?”

Tony tilts his head. That’s a fair question.

Pepper takes a deep breath. “From my understanding, Iron Man has coordinated with SHIELD a few times when SHIELD needed his help. SHIELD wants Iron Man safe. And as for the steps being taken to ensure full cooperation—” Pepper pauses. “I have given Captain America and SHIELD access to key parts of the tower, with supervision, of course.”

Tony freezes.

Key parts of the tower.

_Oh fuck._

 

 

 

“Listen, Nat,” Steve says, shouldering the door open as he holds his phone in one hand and holds his easel bag in the other, “I’m too busy. You know that. No, that’s not an excuse. That’s just the truth. And, for the last time, I do not have a crush on him, Nat. I just think he’s a swell guy.”

Steve shuts the door behind him with his leg, and Tony pads toward him, tail perking up in happiness. Steve smiles at him, fond as always, and Tony feels his tail twitch.

“With the mess we’re dealing with—I just can’t date anyone right now. I’m also just…not interested at the moment. No, it’s not because of him. We’re just teammates, Nat,” Steve continues, and Tony feels his tail lower in displeasure, which—that’s not fair. Just because Tony’s gone and gotten himself a massive crush on Steve doesn’t mean Steve shouldn’t go out and meet someone who can actually make him happy.

And really, Tony should be happy that his friend Nat is trying to get him to date. Steve’s a great guy—one of the best, if Tony’s going to be completely honest—and it had confused Tony when Steve just…didn’t date.

He’s a catch. Sure, there’s that gorgeous body of his—the man has an ass Tony thinks belongs on an eat-all-you-can buffet table, and those legs look like they were sculpted by the Greeks themselves—but there’s his smile, the way it makes his eyes light up just so, and there’s his laugh, always so sudden, like he never expected to find something as funny as he did. He’s a gigantic dork whose complete inability to cook anything more complicated than putting food in the oven almost forced Tony to try and see if he can somehow dial 911 on Steve’s phone. He sketches, and he reads books out loud, and he took home a cat just because it followed him into a crowd. Steve’s… _Steve_ , and Tony doesn’t understand how the man is single. He should be out there, meeting people. Instead, he’s here every night, the loneliness in his apartment palpable even when Tony tries his best to make him laugh.

So yeah, Tony’s fucked. And not in the fun way, either.

_You should be proud,_  he meows, moving so Steve can walk to his bedroom without trampling over him.  _The last person I liked this much was Cap, and you’re way ahead of him now. That’s one hell of an achievement._

“No,” Steve says. “Tomorrow should be better, though. I’m told we’ll be able to access his workshop. I’m not looking forward to invading his privacy, but it looks like this is the only way.”

Tony leaps onto Steve’s bed.  _What the hell do you do for a living?_ Tony meows, watching as Steve places his easel bag in his closet like he usually does.  _Teammate? Workshop?_

Tony had tried looking for Steve on the internet once. Sadly, all he found were a bunch of Facebook accounts belonging to people with the same name as Steve, although to be fair, it’s not like Tony was really expecting Steve to have a vibrant online social life. Tony would have searched for more, but as it is, without JARVIS to assist him, he’s pretty limited by what he can Google, or really, by what he can type down without losing his mind after hitting backspace for the nth time.

“Yeah, I’ll let you know more when I know more,” Steve says, then hangs up. He looks at Tony, fond smile back in place. “How do you feel about dinner? I’m starving.”

_I’d take you to dinner anytime,_ Tony meows.

Steve, oblivious to what Tony just said, just walks out of the bedroom and starts heading to the kitchen. “I’ve had a long day. It’s been a long week, actually,” Steve says, giving a small, self-deprecating chuckle as he glances at Tony’s food dispenser to make sure it’s dispensing food at the right time. “I’m thinking I should get dinner first, then do my laundry. What do you think?”

_You smell exhausted, Steve. Get dinner first._

Steve smiles. “I don’t know exactly what you just said, but I’m going to pretend you agreed with me.”

_You’re such a dork._

Dinner turns out to be leftover pizza for Steve and more dry cat food for Tony. Once Tony’s done with his food—it will never stop being weird that he’s eating  _cat food_  and not human food—he walks over to the couch and curls up. Steve, as expected, follows him to the couch as soon as he’s washed his hands after eating. He sits down with a heavy sigh, one hand immediately reaching for Tony.

Tony purrs. Steve’s fingers are  _magic_.

Steve turns the TV on, and Tony settles in, laying his head on Steve’s lap. He closes his eyes, content to just lay there, smelling Steve’s comforting scent.

It’s tempting to just stay here, knowing that what he chooses to do today won’t negatively affect his company’s stock or end up on the front pages of the New York Times. For all that he complains about being a cat and all that comes with that—using a litter box, for one, and grooming himself using his tongue, for another—he hasn’t been this well-rested in a while.

He can’t stay like this forever though, despite the fact that he almost feels like he  _can_  during moments like this, when he’s comfortable and he can almost pretend that Steve’s fingers are burrowed in his hair and not in his fur. He has friends to get back to, a company to get back to, a  _life_  to get back to, and Steve, for all that he’s kept Tony from losing his mind while being stuck in the body of a cat, isn’t worth throwing all that away.

Besides, he’d much rather be Steve’s boyfriend than his cat, anyway.

Tony opens one eye to look at the Iron Man plushie lying on the floor near the bookshelf. Is it worth it to try and tell Steve that he’s Iron Man using the plushie again? If Tony gives him the plushie again, Tony doubts Steve will get what Tony’s trying to tell him, but who knows? Maybe he’ll be lucky and Steve will actually get what he’s trying to say.

“Do you think Virginia Potts hired Iron Man to kidnap Tony Stark so she can take control of the company?” one reporter asks, directing his attention to his guest.

The guest nods. “It’s entirely possible, yes.”

Fuck it. At this point, Tony’s just going to pee the letters to “I AM IRON MAN” one by one on Steve’s hardwood floors until he gets the fucking hint.

People are starting to come for Pepper, and yeah, Tony knows she can handle herself, but this isn’t fair. This isn’t right. Attack him, attack his reputation, his company’s reputation, his past, present, and future, but not her. She doesn’t deserve it.

Steve, sensing that he’s upset, slows his hand as he pets Tony. “I know, Tony,” Steve says, understanding. “I hate what they’re saying, too. They don’t know him, so they sensationalize him. It’s awful.”

_Steve, honestly, I could kiss you right now for believing in me so much,_ Tony meows, looking up at Steve,  _but you have got to help me turn back to human._

“You’re worried too, huh?” Steve asks, mistaking Tony’s meows for agreement. “Don’t worry. Tomorrow, I’m going to help find him.”

Tony blinks.  _What? What do you mean? Do you work for SHIELD?_

Steve sighs, then carefully takes Tony off his lap and onto another couch cushion. He takes a deep breath, then pushes himself up and off the couch, stretching his limbs once he’s fully upright. He bends his trunk sideways, clasping his elbows as he stretches to ease the discomfort from his shoulders, then bends forward, palms flat on the floor as his knees remain locked.

Tony tilts his head and looks at the generous curve of Steve’s ass, feeling his tail twitch, pleased. Steve really looks mouthwateringly gorgeous, looks like he could compete with Cap on a modeling competition and maybe even win, because the gorgeous dip of his lower back followed by the beautiful shape of his ass almost makes Tony want to believe in a higher being.

“All right,” Steve says, standing up straight. “I’m going to do laundry now before it gets late.”

Tony looks at the TV where the reporter and the guest are still arguing the merits of Pepper being acting CEO, and decides to follow Steve into the bedroom instead. He pads into the room and leaps onto Steve’s bed, watching as Steve opens his closet.

Tony glances at the laptop on the table. Maybe he should type out what he’s trying to tell Steve. He would look crazy and Steve may take the laptop away from him before he finishes typing the sentence he wants to tell Steve, but at least he can say that he tried.

Mind made up, Tony leaps off the bed and walks toward the table, crouching down to jump onto the chair at the desk. He’s just about to jump when Steve notices him from the closet and immediately reaches for the laptop, folding it closed and tucking it under one arm.

_Oh, come on. You have got to be fucking kidding me, Steve._

“Sorry Tony,” Steve says, unapologetic. “We haven’t trimmed your claws yet, and I don’t want to break this. It’s not really mine. Also, I have to return it anyway, since we’re concerned someone might have gotten access to it.”

_Steve. Steve, buddy, friend, pal, I need that laptop._

Steve tilts his head to the side, looking a little confused at Tony’s frustration.

Tony can feel his tail whipping back and forth. It’s probably a little alarming to Steve, who Tony had never been  _this_  frustrated with before.

“Sorry Tony,” he says, turning back to the closet and putting the laptop on a shelf high enough that Tony won’t possibly be able to access it as a cat. “This isn’t a toy. Maybe we should play fetch with the Iron Man toy again, what do you say?”

Tony looks at the laptop and almost wants to cry. He was  _this_  close.  _Steve, I love that you’re enthusiastic about having me as a cat, but I’ve got to tell you buddy, it’s fucking weird playing with that thing. I like playing with myself, but not like this._

Steve turns around and smiles at him. “We’ll play, okay? Let me get my laundry started first.”

Growling under his breath, Tony returns to the bed and leaps onto it, watching as Steve grabs the easel bag from inside the closet and unzips it open. He takes out… _something_  made of what smells like leather and sweat—a uniform, Tony guesses. It’s dark blue with red and white stripes, and Steve shakes it open to reveal a white star, and—

Oh no.

Tony watches, eyes wide open, as Steve puts Cap’s uniform into his laundry basket like it’s just another item of clothing. His tail is frozen, his whole body is frozen, and he can’t follow Steve out of the room because he’s too busy trying to process what he just saw.

What the hell is Steve doing with Cap’s uniform?

Tony looks at the still-open easel bag and feels his jaw fall open, because right there is a gleaming piece of metal, painted red, white, and blue, and that’s Cap’s shield, and  _what the hell is Steve doing with Cap’s shield?_

And then it hits him.

The World War II and political memoir books, like Steve was trying to learn everything that happened after the War. The limited amount of truly modern tech in Steve’s apartment. Steve’s complete absence from any form of social media. The Iron Man sketches in Steve’s notebook, the way Steve had sketched him in dynamic poses like he had personally seen Tony in them.

_“My friend—he was in there earlier—”_

_“That’s Iron Man. I’ve met him, you know. He’s a real hero.”_

_“I’m told we’ll be able to access his workshop.”_

_“Tomorrow, I’m going to help find him.”_

Tony looks at the laptop once again, still secure on the shelf Steve put it on, and now he  _actually_  wants to cry.

_Cap—Steve!_  Tony meows, leaping off the bed and running to the small laundry room near the kitchen.

Steve turns around, eyebrows raised in surprise. “What’s wrong?” he asks, a pair of pants in one hand and a Tide Pod in the other. “You were a little loud, Tony.”

_You—you fucker. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were Cap!_

Steve’s worried look becomes even more worried, his eyebrows furrowing and his lips curving into a frown. “Tony, I don’t actually understand you, you know? What’s wrong?” He turns around, chucks his pants and the Tide Pod into the washing machine, and closes the door, turning the machine on with a twist of the wash setting knob.

_Everything, Steve. Every. Fucking. Thing._

“Come on,” Steve says, turning away from the washing machine and walking back to the living room. When he looks back and sees Tony still standing by the open doorway to the small laundry room, he looks at him, fond, before picking him up and carrying him to the couch with him.

Tony doesn’t struggle. Instead, he looks up at Steve’s face, looks at his eyes and lips, and wonders how the hell he didn’t realize that Steve is Cap.

Steve sets Tony down on his lap as he sits down, and Tony remembers another tiny tidbit about Steve.

Steve— _Cap_ —has a crush on Iron Man. Who else would be the teammate that Steve was very defensive about not having a crush on but him?

For a few moments, Tony basks in the warm feeling of knowing that there’s a possibility that Captain America— _Steve_ —likes him back. Once he turns back to human, he can ask this sweet, kind, and gorgeous man out, and there’s at least a 97% chance that he won’t get rejected. Tony kind of likes those odds.

But then he remembers.

Tomorrow, Steve’s going to enter his workshop with the rest of SHIELD—and really, short of jumping out the window, there’s no way for Tony to stop him. He could try escaping the apartment while Steve’s leaving, but once he’s outside, what’s he going to do? He’s still a cat. The things he can do are pretty limited, and although Steve as Cap has seen his fair share of weird things, it probably still won’t occur to him that his cat is actually a Fortune 500 CEO.

And that’s the thing. Tomorrow, Steve’s probably going to find out that Iron Man is none other than Tony Stark. What would he think then? Would he still think of Iron Man as a good man? Tony has a pretty shitty public record, and he has no doubt that once Steve finds out the truth about him, Iron Man’s record will be tainted. What then? Would he still be open to Tony asking him out to dinner? Would he even want to keep being Iron Man’s teammate?

And that’s another thing. There’s no guarantee that Steve finding the truth about him will reverse the spell. Crazy Magic Lady said he was going to remain as a cat until he found someone to love him as he is, but what does that even mean? Steve might like Iron Man, but once he finds out that Iron Man is really Tony Stark, that might change. And love—that’s too much to ask. Steve doesn’t even know him.

_For what it’s worth, Steve?_

Steve looks down at him, pleased that he isn’t meowing with that undercurrent of tension and anger anymore.

_I enjoyed my time with you. I really, really did._

 

 

 

The next day crawls by. There’s no other way to describe it.

Tony’s not entirely sure of what he wants. When Steve was getting ready to leave that morning, dressed in his usual white shirt and jeans, Tony wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted him to leave quicker or not leave at all.

There’s no way that Steve won’t find out the truth tomorrow. Yeah, he’s not that good at dealing with technology, but Tony doesn’t doubt for one moment that Steve will find what he’s looking for. JARVIS might even willingly give Steve the information he needs—the benefits that may arise from Cap knowing everything that he might possibly need to know to look for Tony far outweigh the risks, and JARVIS knows that. Hell, he might even just cut to the chase and tell Steve that Tony’s been transformed into a cat.

It’s one thing for Steve to find out that Tony Stark is Iron Man. It’s a complete other thing for Steve to find out that his cat is Tony Stark.

Because then, what happens if Tony doesn’t turn back? Steve might find it too weird to care for a cat who isn’t really a cat.

He needs to stop worrying about these kinds of things. Really, he should just wait and see what happens. So he does. Try to wait, that is. That lasts for about two minutes before Tony starts pacing back and forth, his head full of hypothetical scenarios and possible explanations to tell Steve. He starts thinking of what he can say to convince Steve to at least continue to be his teammate if dating him is completely out of the question, and he feels his tail lower in sadness.

It feels like forever before Steve opens the door to the apartment, exhausted. Tony’s about to approach him when a woman with red hair walks into the apartment behind Steve, and Tony’s heart falls.

Of course, Steve isn’t interested in anyone right now. Who would be, if they knew someone who looks like her?

Steve sighs, sitting down on the couch and leaning his easel bag against the edge of the couch, and Tony immediately leaps onto his lap, butting his head against Steve’s chest in an effort to cheer him up. He smells tired and frustrated, and Tony’s heart pangs.

Steve starts petting Tony. “He knows something, Nat,” Steve says, watching as the girl—Nat—sits down just a foot away from him. “I know he does. He just won’t tell me.”

“JARVIS does seem very loyal,” Nat comments, watching coolly as Steve continues to pet Tony. “Is this Tony?”

Steve looks down, and his lips curve into a smile. “Yeah,” he says, looking at her. “This is Tony.”

“And you said he pointed to a copy of National Enquirer when you asked him what he wanted to be called?”

Steve shrugs. “Yeah? He seems smarter than most cats.”

“Huh,” Nat says, looking at Tony with one, thin eyebrow raised. “Interesting.”

Tony watches her for a few moments before looking away. She looks at him like she can read his mind. It’s a little unnerving.

“I don’t understand why he won’t just tell us what he knows.” Steve brings one hand up to card his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I know he’s loyal, but we’re trying to help him here.”

Nat sighs. “I think it may be because we work for SHIELD.”

Tony turns his head to look at her. She works for SHIELD? Is she the red-haired teammate Steve worked with a few days ago?

Is everyone working for SHIELD now? What the hell is going on?

“I know SHIELD as an organization does not inspire much trust, but—”

Nat shakes her head. “Iron Man was given the chance to be a part of the Initiative.”

Steve, about to say something else, closes his mouth abruptly. “He was? I had wondered why he wasn’t a part of it. I was about to suggest to Nick that we talk to him and try to get him onboard.” He looks down at his feet. “He said no, didn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Nat says, nodding her head. “Fury was hoping that by having you work with him, you might be able to convince him to give the Initiative a try.”

“What,” Steve asks, incredulous, “without knowing about Fury’s intentions? How was I supposed to convince him when I didn’t even know I was supposed to do what Fury was expecting me to do?”

“You have a certain charm, Steve. When he found out that SHIELD found you, Fury tried to convince him to think about the Initiative again by using you as, well, let’s call it—”

“A bargaining chip?” Steve asks wryly.

Nat cracks a smile. “I was going to say incentive, but that works, too.”

“Why?”

“I told you,” Nat says, shrugging. “You have a certain charm. Iron Man wanted to meet you. Fury told him you agreed to be a part of the Initiative, and it was the first time Fury saw him actually stop and take a moment to think about what’s on the table.”

Tony remembers that day. Funny, how life has a way of giving you what you want without really giving you what you want. Tony had never thought he would be able to meet Cap as  _Steve_ , had never thought he would be able to even get a glimpse of the kind of person Cap is outside the uniform, yet here he is, staying with him in his apartment as a cat.

In all his years of the universe fucking with him, this really takes the cake.

“Let me get this straight.” Steve takes a deep breath, then exhales, visibly trying to get rid of the tension in his shoulders. “Fury wanted me to convince Iron Man without actually convincing Iron Man?”

“Pretty much. Fury wanted you to be subtle.”

Steve nods, slow. Tony can practically see the puzzle pieces starting to fit together inside his head. “JARVIS doesn’t trust us, because he knows Iron Man said no to the Initiative.”

“Probably.”

Tony closes his eyes. That doesn’t make sense, though. Sure, Tony sure as hell doesn’t trust SHIELD, but he trusts Cap. JARVIS knows that. He’s seen Tony and Cap fight side-by-side. So how come he didn’t just outright tell Steve that Tony’s been turned into a cat?

“Why did he bother directing me and helping me get information from the Iron Man armor, then?” Steve asks, rubbing his face with one hand.

Tony’s eyes open.

Of course. His workshop would have been full of SHIELD agents and people JARVIS isn’t necessarily sure Tony trusts. He wouldn’t have just told Cap about what happened to Tony, not when there were agents there that he didn’t know.

Nat sighs and stands up from the couch. “That’s for you to figure out. Nice to meet you, Tony,” she says, looking at Tony as her lips twitch into a smile.

_You know,_ Tony meows, watching as Nat exits the apartment and closes the door behind her,  _she’s a little scary._

Steve leans forward and opens the easel bag, taking out a small USB flash drive. He sighs, then looks at Tony. “I’m probably going to have a long night ahead of me,” Steve says, his smile wan. “You should probably go to bed.”

_That’s not happening, Capsicle_. Tony tries to narrow his eyes at Steve. He must succeed somewhat, because Steve’s eyebrows climb on his forehead as his smile turns a little more genuine.  _I want to see what you’re seeing._

“Or not,” Steve says, amused. He picks Tony up using one hand and uses the other hand to carry both the easel bag and the small flash drive, standing up and immediately heading to the bedroom. “You’re going to have to let me work, though. I need to take a look at this.”

Steve gingerly places him on the bed. He goes to the closet, leans his easel bag against the wall, then grabs the laptop from the shelf and walks to his desk. Any worry Steve might have had about his computer being hacked is gone now, replaced by the need to know.

“JARVIS, Mister Stark’s AI?” Steve asks, turning his head to glance at Tony over his shoulder while he waits for his laptop to boot up. “He would like you, I think. You’re smart, for a cat. He’s smart, for a computer. You would get along.”

_I sure hope so, since, you know, I made him._

Tony feels like he’s about to vibrate out of his skin. He’s not quite sure of what he hopes JARVIS put on that drive.

Finally, Steve plugs in the flash drive, and Tony watches, intrigued. A video player opens on Steve’s laptop, and—

—It’s not the right video. Or, at the very least, it’s not the video Tony was expecting. Instead of a video of Tony being turned into cat, it’s a video of Iron Man’s first appearance in the news, along with news about Tony’s captivity in Afghanistan.

JARVIS wants Steve to figure it out.

When the video about Tony’s escape from Afghanistan ends and video logs of him trying on the suit begin, Tony’s forced to rethink JARVIS’s strategy. This isn’t about JARVIS trying to get Steve to figure out that Tony Stark and Iron Man are one and the same, because at this point, he’s just explicitly told Steve Iron Man’s real identity.

So, what’s the point?

Why not just show Steve the cat video and be done with it? Why bother with the videos of him getting sprayed in the face with a fire extinguisher by Dummy? Why bother with the videos of him trying out flying using the suit for the first time?

Tony eyes Steve warily, trying to gauge his reaction, but his face is blank. He’s barely moving at all, if not for the slightest movement of his eyes as he tries to follow the movement on the screen.

_Steve_ , Tony finally meows, one hour into the semi-informative video. He raises himself on all four paws and leaps off the bed, walking toward Steve and butting his head against Steve’s leg.  _You okay?_

Steve pauses the video and looks at Tony like he’d completely forgotten Tony was even in the room with him. He gives him a small smile and picks him up, setting him down on his lap with careful hands. “Hey buddy,” he says, fingers coming up to scratch the back of Tony’s ears. His eyes are already focused on the video again, watching as the Tony on the screen flies to Gulmira and destroys caches filled with SI weapons. “You should probably go to sleep. I have a lot of videos to look at.”

Tony watches with satisfaction as the weapons explode on the screen.  _You really only have to watch one video. Of all the recordings JARVIS could have given you, why these?_

When Steve doesn’t reply, Tony curls up in his lap and listens to the video instead, not wanting to see the recordings and feel that telltale pang in his heart that tells him just how much he misses his suit. He misses flying and the feeling of freedom that comes with it. He misses his hands, misses his workshop, misses the feeling of joy that comes with creating something and actually getting that something to work.

“Tony Stark, he’s—” Steve begins a few moments later as he watches a recording of Tony saving a school bus full of fourth-graders from a giant robot with gleaming red eyes, “—well. He’s something else, that’s for sure. I can’t believe he’s Iron Man.”

Tony’s heart falls.  _What, you can’t believe I’m capable of being a good person?_ he meows, a bitter taste creeping into his mouth and lodging itself there. He curls further into himself.

Steve glances down at him before looking back at the screen again. “He’s just so…busy,” he says under his breath, awe coloring the tone of his voice. “How does he have time to do all of this?”

Just like that, Tony can breathe a little better again, because he doesn’t quite know how he would feel if Captain America didn’t think he was capable of doing good things.

Three hours in, and they’re still watching suit recordings of Tony fighting villains on the screen, interspersed with random news bits about him and his company. When they get to the recording of Tony synthesizing Vibranium, Steve gives a little jolt, glancing at his closet where Tony knows his shield is before continuing to watch the video once more, visibly amazed.

_I think you should go to sleep,_ Tony finally meows as he tries to fight off the heaviness creeping into his limbs.  _This is a lot of information. I also don’t know what the hell JARVIS is getting at here._

Steve brings his hand to Tony’s body and starts petting him, fingers smoothing out Tony’s black fur. “Your namesake’s a pretty swell guy,” he says, and Tony smells something like regret cling to Steve’s skin. “I just wish he’d told me who he was beforehand. I wish I had met him outside the suit.”

Tony sighs.  _You and me both, Steve._

Five hours in, and Tony’s ready to tap out. It seems like JARVIS just spliced together almost all the recordings the suit had of Tony fighting villains and the recordings of Tony working on the suit in his workshop. It gets boring real quick for Tony to keep on watching himself work, especially when he has to watch himself think aloud about problems he once couldn’t figure out, but he has now since solved. Steve, to his credit, doesn’t stop paying attention at the video once. Sure, he’s petting Tony, but at this point, that’s more of an act of habit than something Steve is consciously doing.

Standing up on legs that feel like rubber, Tony butts Steve’s arm to get his attention. When Steve looks at him, a questioning look in his eyes, Tony leaps off Steve’s lap and walks to the bed, hoping that Steve will get the message. It’s about two in the morning now, and while Tony-the-human’s normal is getting about four hours of sleep per day, Tony-the-cat is better than him and consistently gets more sleep on the daily.

Steve glances back at the laptop. He sighs. “You go ahead, Tony,” he says, turning his head to glance at Tony. “I’ll just watch one more hour, and then I’ll continue this in the morning, I promise.”

Tony leaps onto the bed and heads for his spot on Steve’s bed, ignoring that warm feeling in his chest when he thinks about him having his own spot on Steve’s bed. He curls up, watching Steve continue to pay attention to the video. He’s starting to feel the aftereffects of spending the entire day worrying about what Steve would see in his workshop, and he blinks rapidly, trying to fight off the exhaustion.

Eventually, he closes his eyes and sleeps. Steve must have kept his promise, because after what feels like just minutes, Tony opens his eyes as he feels the bed dip. He watches Steve get comfortable under the comforter, and he makes his way under the sheet to settle against Steve’s side, enjoying his warmth.

He falls asleep warm and content.

 

 

 

Tony wakes up to comfortable warmth down his back and the steady rhythm of deep breaths ruffling the hair on his nape. For a moment, he cuddles up even tighter to the person behind him, his lips curling into a small smile when he feels the momentary tightening of someone’s arms around him, until he remembers.

He’s a cat.

Or—he looks down and sees his body, naked and without fur—he  _was_  a cat. Not anymore it seems, because his hands are undoubtedly hands and not paws, and yeah, that’s Steve’s leg situated right in between his own, the cotton of Steve’s dark blue pajamas soft against Tony’s balls.

Tony freezes.  _Steve_.

At that moment, Steve’s grip on him tightens, as if Steve just knew that Tony was thinking about him. Unconsciously, Steve presses closer, his lips brushing against Tony’s bare nape in a sweet, not-quite kiss, and Tony feels his breath leave his lungs in a dizzying rush.

He wants this. Oh God, he wants this so bad, it actually hurts.

Taking deep breaths, Tony looks at the room, looks at the shadows the arc reactor’s light casts on the walls, looks at anything that isn’t Steve’s hands and how they look like they belong there, resting against Tony’s abdomen, and tries to think. He needs to leave now. He needs to leave before Steve sees him, and he especially needs to leave before Steve finds himself cuddling a man he hasn’t really met before, not like this.

_Or_ , a traitorous part of his mind says,  _you could stay here and enjoy this until morning._

For a moment, Tony thinks of a world where this is his—where  _Steve_  is his. He loses himself in the fantasy of feeling Steve’s hugs every night, of feeling Steve’s breaths so thoroughly he could almost imagine Steve’s breathing for both of them, of feeling Steve’s lips brush against his nape like Steve’s thinking of kissing him even in his dreams.

What would it be like to get to hug Steve in return? To feel Steve’s fingers carding through his hair, to kiss his lips, to see Steve smile at him-the-human and not him-the-cat?

The thought is intoxicating.

Still, Tony quickly shakes himself out of it, knowing that nothing good ever really comes out of thoughts like these.

He needs a game plan. He needs to leave Steve’s bed, and then he needs to get to the tower, and then he needs to talk to Pepper and Fury. He needs to calm the shareholders down, he needs to have a press conference announcing his return, and he needs to—

—He needs to stop melting against Steve and breathing with him like he belongs here, in Steve’s bed, and, more importantly, in Steve’s arms.

Taking a deep breath, Tony gingerly clasps Steve’s hand in both of his and raises it up until it’s no longer splayed against his stomach. He inches forward, slowly but surely getting himself out of Steve’s hold, and he’s about to roll off the bed when Steve wakes. Steve grasps his arm and pulls him back while simultaneously sitting up and turning around so that he ends up seated on Tony’s lap with his right arm pressed against Tony’s windpipe.

Tony blinks, breathing hard. Steve pants, his arm pressing tighter against Tony’s throat for a moment before he realizes just who is underneath him.

“To—Mister Stark?” Steve asks, visibly confused as he removes his arm from where it was pressed against Tony’s throat.

Panting, Tony tries to give him a small smile. “That’s me,” he croaks.

“I—what are you doing here?” Steve asks. He blinks, then starts looking around from where he’s seated on Tony’s lap, his head turning as he searches the room. “Where’s my cat?”

Here goes nothing. “I am your cat.” Tony blinks. “Or, well, I guess it’s more appropriate to say I was your cat.”

Steve’s eyes narrow. “Tony? You were my cat Tony,” he says, incredulous.

Tony shrugs, or at least tries to while lying on Steve’s bed. “Uh, yeah.”

“Are you on drugs?”

“What? No!” Tony tries to sit up, but it’s pretty much impossible with a super soldier seated on his lap.

Steve, realizing that he’s still sitting on Tony, hurriedly moves off him, blushing when he glances down to find the comforter disturbed and Tony’s entire left leg and at least one ball bared to the air. He quickly looks up, his eyes focusing intently on the plain ceiling.

Immediately, Tony shifts under the comforter so the lower part of his body is covered, feeling his face heat up as he remembers Steve cuddling him while he was naked.

He’s done more depraved things than this, and  _this_  is what makes him blush?

“Look,” Tony says, pushing past the awkwardness threatening to fill the room and sitting up, keeping the comforter situated firmly on his lap, “you always thought your cat was smarter than the average cat, and that’s because I was your cat. I was there.” Tony shakes his head. “Steve, I have never willingly grabbed a copy of National Enquirer before, and I did it so I could get you to call me by my real name.”

Steve opens his mouth, then closes it after a few seconds pass, seemingly thinking better of what he was about to say. Now that he’s identified Tony as someone who isn’t a threat, Steve yawns, his brain slowly trying to process what Tony just said. “I—what?”

Tony sighs. “It’s a lot to take in, I know.”

Steve shakes his head. “You were gone for two weeks.” Steve’s tone becomes less sure and more uncertain. “You were my cat for two weeks?”

Tony nods. “Pretty much.”

“I fed you cat food!” Steve exclaims, a wild look in his eyes as he gestures to Tony with erratic hands. “I played fetch with you! I cleaned out your litter box!” Steve sits back on his legs, bringing one hand up to rub at his face. “Oh God, you’ve seen me naked.”

“I—” Tony pauses. “If it helps, now you’ve seen me naked too?”

Steve glares at him.

“Listen,” Tony says, defensive. “I never watched you get naked, okay? I swear. I like seeing people get undressed, but my tastes run more on the consensual side, thank you very much. And as for all those other things you mentioned, it’s not like I wanted you to, okay? Do you know how embarrassing it is to have someone clean up your shit?” Tony sighs, bringing a hand up to run his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things. You saved me from dying of starvation on the streets,” he says, voice soft as he meets Steve’s eyes. “Look, I’ll get out of your apartment. I’ll pay you back for all the stuff you got for me when I was a cat. Hell, I’ll get you a new cat, how about that?”

Steve shakes his head. “No. You don’t have to. It’s okay. It’s just a lot to take in.”

“Yeah, no, that’s understandable. And really, just say the word, and I’ll get you a cat. I’ll get you cats, plural, if that’s what you want.”

Steve chuckles, a disbelieving look present on his face, as if he can’t quite believe Tony’s the way he is. “No, I don’t want you to buy me a cat. Or cats.” He tilts his head and eyes Tony for a few seconds. “Are you okay?”

Tony’s eyebrows raise. “Am  _I_  okay? You just found out your cat was Tony Stark all along, and you’re asking me if I’m okay?”

“I don’t know about you, but I think finding out your cat is really a person stuck in the body of a cat is easier to get used to than actually being turned into a cat,” Steve says, dry.

“Ah,” Tony says, shrugging. “I had weeks to get used to the idea, I guess.”

After a few moments, Steve takes a deep breath and asks, “so…Iron Man?”

Tony’s breath catches in his throat. He exhales slowly, taking the time to think about what’s going to say. In the end, what he comes up with is, “yeah.” He looks at Steve and imagines him putting on the uniform, the helmet covering parts of his face that Tony’s become familiar with in the past two weeks. “So…Captain America?”

Steve glances at his closet, which, like all other things in Steve’s room, is being illuminated by the blue light of Tony’s arc reactor. “Yeah,” he says, voice soft as he looks at Tony. There’s a kind of fragile look on his face that Tony can’t ever hope to comprehend, especially while he’s sitting in a half-lit room with Steve’s face cast in blue light.

Just like that, the room fills with a kind of tension Tony doesn’t think he’ll be able to get rid of no matter how badly he wants to. Tony watches as Steve’s jaw tightens, watches as Steve gets up from the bed and looks at anything but Tony. In the low light of the room, Tony’s not entirely sure if a blush really is spreading across Steve’s cheeks, but he’s definitely sure that Steve’s wound up. Whatever softness had been in the room is gone now, replaced by the awkwardness Tony’s been expecting, but never really wanted.

“I—” Steve says, halting, “I should probably bring you to SHIELD Medical.”

Tony looks up then. “Steve—”

“I know you don’t trust SHIELD,” Steve interrupts, “but you need to get checked out by doctors who have seen this sort of thing before.”

Tony snorts. “I highly doubt SHIELD doctors have seen this before, Steve.”

Steve shoots him a look. “Humor me.”

Tony sighs. No matter how much he doesn’t trust SHIELD, he already knows he’s going to agree, because this is Steve. Steve, who fed him, and housed him, and took care of him, without asking for anything in return. Certain charm, as Nat had put it.

“Okay,” Tony says, nodding.

 

 

 

Tony, dressed in Steve’s slightly too-long pants and a blue shirt that fits perfectly on him, looks out the window, trying not to think of the awkwardness quickly filling up the taxi. Steve’s seated just a foot away from him, and yet he looks like he’s doing his best to forget that Tony’s even there. The driver, a sleepy Asian man with thinning hair, keeps shooting surprised looks at his rearview mirror, looking at Tony like he’s not quite sure if Tony’s a hallucination or if he really is there.

“Look,” Tony eventually says, when they’re about five blocks away SHIELD’s New York office and he’s had enough of the looks the driver keeps shooting him, “there’s more for you if you keep your questions to yourself.” Tony looks at his pants. “Later,” he adds, realizing that he doesn’t have cash on him.

Eventually, the taxi stops, and Steve and Tony get out. Tony watches as Steve takes his wallet out from his pocket and pays the driver, tipping him extra for, presumably, stopping himself from asking questions.

As they walk into the building, Tony glances at Steve from the corner of his eye. There’s a distance between them that wasn’t there before, and weirdly enough, Tony finds himself missing the feeling of being a cat again. He might not have had hands then, but at least he wasn’t drowning in tension whenever he was standing next to Steve. Whatever easy familiarity they had built with each other is well and truly gone now.

While walking to Medical, Tony lets himself get used to the feeling of having legs again, of being able to walk on two feet and not having to look up so much whenever he wants to meet Steve’s eyes. Of course, that’s a moot point, as Steve won’t look at him, his gaze focused straight ahead. Eventually, Tony gives up on trying to get his attention, instead walking silently beside him, thoughts running through his head a mile a minute.

Fury intercepts them on their way to Medical, his black coat billowing behind him as he strides toward them, his combat boots clicking against the tiled floor.

“Stark,” Fury says, looking him up and down, “welcome back.”

“Missed me?” Tony asks, giving Fury a cocky grin as he continues walking towards Medical.

“Like an infection,” Fury says, looking straight ahead. “You can be a massive pain in the ass, but I’m glad you’re back.”

Tony’s eyebrows raise. “Sentimental already? I wasn’t gone for  _that_  long,” he says, but he’s grinning, watching as Fury’s eye narrows.

“You were gone for too long,” Fury says, pausing to let the automatic sliding doors leading to Medical open walking once more. “I had to deal with your disappearance for too long.”

Tony inhales deeply. “Yeah,” he agrees.

Fury watches as a doctor in a white lab coat turns the corner and starts approaching them. He looks at Tony, then Steve, and says, “I’ll let you get checked out. I expect you in my office as soon as Dr. Semmelweis is finished with you. Don’t even think about leaving the building, Stark.”

At that, Fury turns around and leaves. Tony turns to look at Steve, but Steve only offers him a sad smile before turning too, leaving the way they came. Tony watches, helpless, as Steve walks away, and he keeps on watching until Steve and Fury are out of sight.

“Mr. Stark?”

Tony turns around and faces the doctor.

“Right this way, sir.”

 

 

 

After being poked and prodded by not one, not two, but  _three_  SHIELD doctors after he had explained just why exactly he was in SHIELD Medical in the first place, Tony heads to Fury’s office, finding himself looking around just to see a glimpse of Steve. He doesn’t manage to see him at all, which only confirms his suspicion that Steve must be avoiding him.

He exhales sharply, his chest hurting with a slight pang. What did he expect? Of course, Steve would want nothing to do with him. Steve’s a good person, and Tony’s…Tony. Steve deserves better than him.

He opens the door to Fury’s office, not bothering to knock. He walks in, hoping against hope that Steve might be there so he could at least try to clear the air between them, but he isn’t there. Instead, Fury’s seated at his desk, an unimpressed look on his face as he watches Tony enter the room.

“Iron Man, huh?” Fury asks, straight to the point.

Tony forces himself not to react, instead heading to one of the chairs right in front of Fury’s desk and sitting down slowly. He looks at him, eyebrows raised. “Iron Man what? Kidnapped me? You can’t believe everything you see on the news, Fury.”

Fury shakes his head, a disbelieving look on his face. “Don’t give me that, Stark. I know you’re Iron Man.”

Tony’s heart falls. Still, he doesn’t let it show on his face. Fury’s a spy’s spy after all. “What do you mean?”

Fury leans forward, placing his arms on the desk as he interlocks his fingers. “I mean that we saw the video your AI has helpfully given the Captain. We saw everything.”

Tony lets out a shaky exhale. Fuck. “Do you make a habit of spying on your employees?”

Upon seeing the look on his face, Fury leans back, shaking his head. “When we heard about Rogers’ concern that someone else was using his computer, we went through the backdoor and started paying more attention, remotely watching any kind of activity.”

Tony sighs. Years and years of being careful, of making sure nobody got all the pieces they needed to solve the puzzle, and now everything he’s carefully built is falling apart just because he couldn’t fucking use the incognito mode on Steve’s browser when he was looking at Cap’s—or really, Steve’s—Instagram account.

He has three doctorates, for Christ’s sake.

“So,” Fury says, watching him intently with his one good eye, “you want to think about the Initiative again?”

“What, no blackmail? No threats?” Tony asks, disbelieving. “You can’t expect me to believe that you’re not going to do  _something_  with the information you just got.”

“Well,” Fury says, thinking over his words, “contrary to popular belief, I do not exist to make your life a living hell, Stark. I just want to offer you the chance to be a part of something greater than the both of us. I’m giving you the chance to be a part of a team.”

“You can’t expect me to believe that.”

“Why not?” Fury asks. “I’m sure you’ve noticed how villains have started showing up more often than before, and they tend to be more powerful too. You used to operate by yourself, but now, it’s getting harder and harder, isn’t it? Without the Captain, you take longer.”

Tony thinks back to that seven-minute fight with Crazy Magic Lady and has to agree.

“I know you, Stark,” Fury says, training his good eye on Tony. “You have this drive to do good. In a team, you’ll be able to do more good than before. I know how stubborn you can be, too. I know that threatening you or bribing you won’t work.”

“You tried to bribe me into joining the team by using Cap as a bargaining chip,” Tony points out, recalling the conversation Nat had with Steve.

Fury shrugs. “Indirectly,” he says. “It almost worked, didn’t it?”

Tony stays quiet.

Fury, seeing something on Tony’s face that he doesn’t like, sighs. “Stark,” he says, leaning forward once more, “what’s stopping you from saying yes? Iron Man would be a good asset to have.  _You_ ,” he stresses, “would be a good member of the team. We’re working on recruiting a God from New Mexico, and we’re talking with Dr. Banner. You’re the missing piece.”

Fury’s right. What  _is_  stopping him from saying yes? Before, he hadn’t agreed because he didn’t want them to find out about the man inside the suit, secretly terrified of the possibility that Iron Man would lose Fury’s grudging respect the moment they found out just who exactly  _is_  Iron Man, but that isn’t the case now. Fury knows who he is, and he’s still offering him the chance to be a part of the team. He has nothing to lose. So why the hold-up?

Tony thinks about Steve, and he already knows that he’s going to say no to Fury.

“Thanks for the offer,” Tony says, meeting Fury’s eye, “but I’m still saying no.”

Fury watches him intently. “Why?”

Tony thinks about Steve, the way he used to smile at him when Tony was still a cat, the way Steve looked while asleep, peaceful and without worry, the way Steve talked to him like he was important. He remembers Steve reading World War II books out loud and he remembers Steve defending Iron Man and he remembers Steve’s fingers scratching the back of his ears. He remembers the feeling of Steve’s arm around him as he stays asleep, remembers the feeling of Steve’s breath against his bare nape, remembers Steve clutching him close as he dreamt.

But he also remembers the tension in Steve’s shoulders when he was walking with Tony to Medical. He remembers the awkwardness filling Steve’s bedroom when he finally realized Tony was in his bedroom, and he remembers Steve acting like he wasn’t there when they were in the taxi. He remembers Steve not looking at him as they walked down the SHIELD hallways and he remembers Steve walking away.

He can’t possibly work with Steve, not when Steve’s already rejected him. It would just make the team dynamics weird.

“Because,” Tony says simply, not knowing how to even put the right words together to explain how he feels to Fury of all people.

Fury nods. “All right,” he says, though he doesn’t look too happy about Tony’s decision.

Tony starts to stand up.

“Stark.”

Tony’s eyebrow raises in a silent question.

“We watched the video long after Rogers stopped,” Fury says. “A cat? Really?”

Tony feels his cheeks heat up. He refuses to let Fury see him react to that. “Yes.”

Fury’s laughter follows him as he walks out.

 

 

 

A quick explanation to Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey, a press conference in which he had been forced to finally admit that he was Iron Man after reporters kept asking him about Iron Man going rogue and abducting him, and a stressful shareholder meeting later, Tony finds himself in his office at SI, wondering if having a part of him that misses being a cat is a sign of insanity.

It’s ridiculous. He shouldn’t miss that experience this much, considering he spent most of it eating cat food and shitting in what was basically a plastic box, but looking at all the paperwork he has to sign after two weeks of being gone, he finds himself missing the free time he used to have.

Also, Steve. He misses Steve a hell of a lot. He misses the comfort that came with just being near Steve.

Tony scrubs a hand down his face, forcing himself to focus back on the papers Pepper wanted him to go over five hours ago. He’s being pathetic. Steve wasn’t his  _anything_ , except maybe his owner—and holy shit is that a can he does  _not_  want to open—and it’s ridiculous to miss him this much.

An hour later, Tony gives up on trying to get anything CEO-related done for the day, standing up from his desk with a sigh. He hasn’t been able to focus since he had turned back, and though he sometimes wonders if that’s a side-effect of being turned into a cat, he knows that it’s really not that. He can’t focus because it’s weird, getting to know so much about someone he didn’t even know he knew, and then now having to act like he doesn’t know that Steve once almost burned his eyebrow off trying to make stir fry.

And then there’s losing Cap, too. Tony hasn’t fought anyone as Iron Man since he’s been turned back to human yet, but he already knows that the dynamics he had with Cap has now changed. He can’t go back to affectionately calling Steve  _Winghead_ , not when Steve more or less told him without words that he can’t trust him anymore.

Of course, just when he finishes that thought, his phone blares with an alert from JARVIS, warning him of giant spiders in Brooklyn.

_I fucking jinxed it_ , he thinks, mourning the fact that he probably won’t get to see the episode of General Hospital he got JARVIS to record for him today until much later. Still, he presses a button on his watch, getting into the Iron Man suit once it’s made its way to him, and taking to the skies immediately. It’s not long before he sees them, robotic spiders the size of one-story houses, slowly heading towards a figure in red, white, and blue.

Tony swallows past the lump in his throat and forces himself to act like everything’s normal. “Did you start the party without me?” he asks, flying low and blasting the underside of a spider with his repulsor.

Cap just laughs, sounding a little relieved. “Of course not, Shellhead. You’re the life of every party.”

Soon enough, they lose themselves in the battle, talking over the comms like nothing’s changed. Midway through the fight, two other people show up, both dressed in leather suits. They’re Nat and the guy with the bow and arrows Tony had seen fight with Cap back when Tony was still a cat, so he doesn’t pay too much attention to them, knowing they’re on the same side.

Three hours and five overturned giant, robotic spiders later, Tony lands back on the ground, right beside Cap and Nat—or, as Cap called her, Black Widow.

“Is this a thing now, Stark?” Nat asks, not even looking at him. “You’re a part of the team, but not really a part of the team?”

Beside Tony, Steve stiffens, whatever easy familiarity that had been there before now gone and replaced with tension. Tony hates it immediately.

Tony shrugs, or at least does so in the suit. “I can’t let you kids have all the fun.”

Nat snorts at that, then turns around and walks away with Arrow-Guy— _Hawkeye—_ before they get roped into helping with clean-up.

“Hey.”

Tony turns around, inhaling sharply when he sees Cap— _Steve_ —standing close to him, eyes intent on his faceplate.

“Can we talk? In private?” Steve asks, soft, and Tony nods, because of course he isn’t going to say no.

Tony’s mouth is suddenly dry. “I—yeah, of course.”

For the first time since Tony has fought villains with Steve, Steve doesn’t stay to help with clean-up. Instead, he quickly walks toward an apartment building Tony has become familiar with, trying to avoid the media before they start making their way past the blockade to find him and Steve.

It’s weird, ducking into Steve’s apartment building in human-form, much less in the Iron Man suit. Everything seems a lot smaller now, and as Tony steps into Steve’s apartment, his suit, all sleek lines and expensive technology, sticks out like a sore thumb.

Tony takes a deep breath from inside the suit, and his heart aches, because even through the filtering systems, he imagines he can still smell Steve’s lingering scent. Through the HUD, he can see the couch where he spent most of his time with Steve, can see the doorway to the bedroom where he used to fall asleep to Steve’s deepening breaths, can see Steve’s sketchbook, closed on the coffee table with a graphite pencil lying on top of it.

Steve, moving with the ease of someone about to walk to the guillotine, walks to the couch and sits on it, offering Tony an uneasy smile.

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Tony closes the door behind him and walks, hesitant, towards the couch. As he glances around, trying to look at anything other than Steve and the way Steve’s looking at him like he’s regretting something—like he’s regretting meeting him—he spies the Iron Man plushie on the floor next to one of the couch legs, and feels loss resonate within him.

It’s stupid to be this attached to a plushie toy of him.

“I think,” Steve begins, removing his helmet and revealing his face, “this is a conversation best held face-to-face.”

Tony makes sure the external speakers aren’t on. “JARVIS.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you think this is a good idea?”

JARVIS’ voice is contemplative. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Tony looks at Steve, the way he holds himself on the couch like he’s about to undergo one of the most painful experiences in his life, and sighs. “He looks like he’d rather be anywhere than here.”

“The Captain does look uncomfortable, but it seems to me that he would not force himself to do something if it was not important. I believe having this conversation with the Captain will benefit you greatly.”

“Before I send the suit back,” Tony says, steeling himself for the awkwardness he knows will fill the room once he steps outside the suit, “why didn’t you show Cap the cat video? What was with all the other videos?”

“The video was at the very end,” JARVIS says, conversational. “I knew that the person who turned you into a cat wanted you to, in her words, find someone to love you are you are. While I did not know that the Captain ended up finding you, I was hoping that by showing the Captain parts of your personality, he would be affectionate towards you enough to break the spell.”

Tony inhales sharply.

_Love you are you are._

Without another word, Tony commands the suit to open, revealing him in a three-piece suit. The suit flies through an open window, and Tony follows it with his eyes until it’s only a speck in the sky.

“Got to admit,” Tony begins, his mouth opening without any real input from his brain, “it’s weird to be back here.”

Steve’s face shuts down, and Tony hurriedly sits down on the couch, internally berating himself. “No, wait, that wasn’t supposed to be a bad thing, Steve, Jesus.” Tony looks down at his lap. “Sorry, I can’t seem to shut up. I just—yeah.”

Steve, apparently having taken pity on him, takes a deep breath. “Mr. Stark—”

“—Tony,” Tony quickly interrupts, shaking his head as he meets Steve’s eyes. “Call me Tony. Please.”

“Tony,” Steve begins slowly, like he’s trying out the taste of Tony’s name in his mouth now that he’s talking to Tony-the-human and not Tony-the-cat, “I want you to know that you’re welcome to the team.”

Tony’s eyebrows raise. “Steve—”

Steve holds up a hand. “No wait, let me finish, please.” When Tony stays silent, Steve takes a deep breath and continues. “I want you to know that I think you would be a great part of the team. I want you to know that I admire your bravery and your compassion, and that the world is lucky to have you as one of its heroes.” Steve bites on his lower lip, uncertain. “Most importantly, I want you to know that if what’s keeping you from fully joining the team is knowing that I—” At this, he stumbles, “—I like you, then you can be rest assured that I would never let that affect the team dynamics and the way you and I work together.”

_Love you as you are._

Steve wasn’t ignoring him because he was rejecting him. Steve was ignoring him because he thought Tony didn’t like him back.

Tony suddenly can’t breathe, and it’s not just because of the arc reactor and the decreased lung capacity.

God, this whole thing feels like a coming-of-age romcom.

Steve looks absolutely miserable. “I know you’ve seen the sketches I did of you,” he continues, oblivious to the thoughts in Tony’s mind, “and I know that you being my cat gave you a lot of insight as to just how much I admire you, but—”

Tony, not being able to take it anymore, places one hand on Steve’s, delighting in the way Steve immediately looks up at him, hopeful. Tony’s smiling so hard, he imagines it will start hurting in just a few minutes, but he doesn’t care. He’s getting to touch Steve’s hand, and he’s getting to look into Steve’s eyes, and this is more than what he could do back when he was a cat. Hell, this is more than what he hoped for.

“Steve,” Tony says, giddy with happiness, “I admire you too. I admire you a whole of a hell lot. Hell, I’ve admired you since I was a child.” At Steve’s shifting look, Tony continues. “But it’s more than that. These past few weeks made me realize just how great of a person you are outside the uniform. I like  _you_ , not the public figure who fights villains and tries to be as cool as Iron Man. I like the guy who sketches in his free time. I like the guy who can’t cook. I like the guy who, without asking questions, bought new stuff for a cat he just randomly found on the street. I like that guy.”

At that, Steve grins.

Tony turns Steve’s hand so he can interlock their fingers. He feels a weird sensation in his chest and vaguely hopes that’s not the arc reactor malfunctioning on him. “When you started acting weird around me, I figured you didn’t want to have Iron Man around, now that you know that Tony Stark is actually piloting the suit, and that—I couldn’t be a part of the team then, not when I was convinced you hated me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Steve says, placing his other hand on top of Tony’s.

“I didn’t know that. For all I know, you could have secretly hated my guts the moment you realized I found out you were Cap.”

“Well,” Steve says, turning towards him as much as he can without falling off the couch, “now that we’ve established that I don’t hate you and that I actually might even like you—what do you think about fully joining the team?”

“I don’t know,” Tony says as he leans in with a teasing smile on his face, “does joining the team come with benefits?”

Steve smiles, fond. The corners of his eyes crinkle as he leans in as well, understanding what Tony’s trying to do. “Of course, it does,” he whispers. He stops just an inch away from Tony, meeting his eyes. “You’re special. You’re the only one who gets the benefits.”

Tony huffs out a laugh. “I sure hope so,” he says, and then he leans in, his other hand coming up to cradle Steve’s cheek.

It turns out that Steve’s lips are as soft as they look.

Who knew?

 

 

 

“I swear to God,” Tony says, flying low as he aims at one of the limbs of the giant, sentient teddy bear, “if this Toys R’ Us reject makes us miss our dinner reservation at Peretti’s, I am personally going to take the stuffing out.”

Clint laughs over the comms. “Chill, Stark. I’m sure Peretti’s will still let you in if you miss your reservation.”

They will, but that’s not the point, so he tells Barton exactly that. “That’s not the point, Katniss. Steve and I had plans. Important plans.” He sighs, weaving through the air to avoid the bear from swatting him using one giant, furry, brown arm. “I can’t believe I’m being cock-blocked by a child’s toy,” he moans.

“I don’t understand,” Thor says over the comms. Tony looks up and sees lightning strike the top of the bear’s head. “This isn’t the first time your plans with Steve have been interrupted by a villain.”

Tony thinks of the ring in his suit pocket and bites his bottom lip.

“Fourth anniversary, Thor,” Natasha says, barely panting as she stabs one of the bear’s legs with a knife.

Tony sighs, relieved at not having to answer the question. He’s had the ring with him for so long, he imagines he can feel it burning through his pocket. It’s a miracle none of the others know yet. Well, except Natasha, probably, since she knows everything.

Maybe that’s why she answered Thor’s question for him. Huh.

“Ah, my apologies.”

“Hey guys,” Bruce says over the comms, clearly worried, “it’s been two hours. Are you sure it’s not code green yet?”

“We’re sure,” Steve answers. “Thanks for the offer though, Bruce.”

“Are we sure we don’t want to see the Hulk wrestle with a giant teddy bear?” Tony asks, grinning as he sees the glare Steve shoots him. “Hey, you never know. The Hulk might want something to keep him company at night.”

“No more chitchat,” Steve says, not gracing Tony’s words with a response. “Widow, you and I are going to distract the bear. We need to get it to face Hawkeye. Iron Man and Thor, if you could attack its eyes, that would be great. Hawkeye, you still got one of your explosive arrows?”

“Aye, Cap.”

Steve nods. “I’m going to need you to aim for its nose and shoot an arrow in. I’m thinking that’s its weak spot. Iron Man and Thor, be ready to fly away.” He presses the comm and opens a private line to Tony. “Don’t worry about the dinner reservation, okay? We’ll make it there in time.”

Tony grins, positioning himself near one of the bear’s eyes. “As long as you’re sure.”

“Of course, I’m sure.”

They all get into position, and it’s not long before Tony and Thor are flying away just as Clint’s arrow makes its way up the bear’s nose. There’s the distant sound of an explosion, and just as Tony lands right beside Cap on the street, the bear’s fluff starts falling down from the sky, with the bear itself landing on its back on the street.

Tony retracts the faceplate, looking up at the fluff. In this light, the fluff almost looks like snow.

“We just killed someone’s imaginary childhood friend,” Clint says over the comms. “Are we teddy bear serial killers now?”

“It’s just one, so not quite serial yet,” Natasha comments.

Tony turns to look at Steve, smiling when Steve removes his helmet. “You better not have gotten me a giant teddy bear for our anniversary,” Steve says, smiling.

Tony laughs. “That was last year.”

Steve inhales sharply, probably remembering the six-foot teddy bear Tony had tried to surprise him with during their last anniversary. He had ended up donating it to charity. Tony, remembering the sight of the giant teddy bear in the dark every time Tony got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, wholeheartedly agreed with him.

Steve leans in, one hand carefully grasping the back of Tony’s head, his fingers carding through Tony’s hair. “Happy Anniversary,” he whispers.

Tony thinks of the ring in his pocket, of the dinner reservation they have at Peretti’s, of the way Steve looks right now as he stands in broad daylight with fluff falling over them like snow, his eyes intent on Tony, and feels all the jittery nervousness he’s had about the proposal fade away.

This is Steve. Steve loves him. And Steve won’t say no to his proposal if they end up missing their dinner reservation. It’s okay.

“Happy Anniversary,” Tony whispers back, and leans in for a kiss that is sweet, deep, and all-consuming. He feels the fluff on the top of his head, feels the heat of Steve’s hand on his nape, feels Steve’s lips, soft against his, and he feels so indescribably happy, he can’t possibly put what he’s feeling into words.

It will be fine. The proposal will be fine.

They have all the time in the world.


End file.
